A&R Winches

An A&R winch is specially designed to abandon or recover a pipe on the seabed. With increasing water depths, the required top tension increases resulting in an increased A&R winch, tensioner capacity and cable length requirements. The regular length of A&R wires for current water depths is 3,500m (11,500ft). Huisman A&R winch systems have been designed with up to 650mt pulling capacity. 

Traction Winches

For higher pipe tensions normally storage/traction winch combinations are used. Our traction winch consists of two drums mounted together in one winch frame. The A&R wire is wound over these two drums in several windings. The traction winch principle is based on friction build-up between the drums and the wire rope. The wire is stored on the storage winch.

The drum axes are mounted at an angle relative to each other, which allows the wire to run in a straight line from one drum to the other. This reduces wire rope fatigue since there is no build-up of torsion in the rope. The drums are provided with hardened and grooved sleeves to prevent wear on the drum surface. The groove diameter increases with every wrap to cope with the elastic elongation of the wire rope when tensioned. 

Storage Winches 

The storage winch stores the wire and maintains a constant hold-back force for the traction winch. The storage winch operates at a low line pull. It will however withstand a very large overload which may be caused during power failure or emergency stop when the brakes are applied and the traction winch is still pulling.