Draft report Hawaii Deep Water Cable Program (HDWCP) : cable repair rationale

Abstract

The Hawaii Deep Water Cable (HDWC) program has a major objective of determining the technical feasibility of deploying and operating, over a service life of thirty years, a submarine power transmission cable between Kohala on the island of Hawaii and the Makapuu area of Oahu. To this end the (HDWC) program has incorporated work elements to: 1) build and laboratory test a prototype cable that is designed to meet a wide range of environmental conditions expected in the route between the islands; 2) conduct at-sea tests to determine the feasibility of accurately laying a commercial cable with the proper tensions; and 3) perform bottom roughness surveys to establish the existence of acceptable cable laying routes and determine the laying requirements. Another task which this report addresses, is assessing the requirements for repairing the submarine portion of an inter-island cable system should damage occur during its operating life. The sections which follow discuss first the report prepared by Pirelli Cable Corporation, titled HDWC Program Repair Rationale which is included as Appendix A, and then develop a baseline approach to a repair scenario and a conceptual arrangement of equipment requirements integrated into the expected cable laying concept developed on other tasks of the HDWC program.