Cable Grippers
AssigneeOcean Cable Technologies Limited
InventorsAndrew James Thomas, Jeremy John Richard Featherstone
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An assembly of a cable gripper and a cable that has an outer protective layer formed from plastically deformable material, over an inner tensile strength portion). The cable gripper includes at least one gripper member having a supported outer end and an active inner end penetrating the outer protective layer and gripping the inner tensile strength portion beneath the outer protective layer. The active inner end includes a material of sufficient hardness to penetrate the outer protective layer by movement of the gripper member through the outer layer from an inoperative to an operative position.
Claims30
A remote cable recovery apparatus, comprising:
- an assembly of a cable gripper and a cable, the cable having an outer protective layer comprising a plastically deformable material, and an inner tensile strength portion, the outer protective layer being more readily penetratable by an object harder than the outer protective layer, than is the inner tensile strength portion, the gripper comprising opposed gripping members that pass through the outer protective layer and grip by direct contact the inner tensile strength portion beneath the outer protective layer;
- and
- a grapnel comprising a plate having an upper face and a lower face, including a tow connection at a forward end and at least one fluke at a rearward end, the fluke including a space housing the cable gripper.
A cable gripper configured for gripping a cable having an outer protective layer comprising a plastically deformable material over an inner tensile strength portion, the outer protective layer being more readily penetrable by an object harder than the outer protective layer than is the inner tensile strength portion, the gripper comprising:
- opposed first and second gripping members having respective cable-gripping portions configured to pass through the outer protective layer and of said cable and grip by direct contact the inner tensile strength portion beneath the outer protective layer;
- a support structure on which the first and second gripping members are supported with their cable-gripping portions facing each other, the support structure being shaped to allow a said cable to be received between the cable-gripping portions, and the support of the gripping members by the support structure being such as to allow for relative movement of the gripping members between a first position, in which the gripping members are separated relative to each other to allow said cable to be received there between, and a second position in which the first and second cable-gripping portions co-operate to grip said cable located there between;
- and
- a drive operable to drive the gripping members from their first to their second relative portions;
- wherein the cable-gripping portions of the gripping members comprise at least one pair of parallel planar elements which, in the second position of the gripping members, lie mutually parallel and spaced from each other in a direction transverse to a direction of relative movement of the gripping members, and
- wherein each planar element has a leading edge which has a cut-out shaped to receive a portion of a periphery of said cable in the second position of the gripping members.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.