The growing demand for hydrocarbon fluids, and the future expectation of insufficient onshore reserves, is driving the exploration and development of off-shore oil and gas fields. A significantly increasing number of the new fields are situated in deep water, placing significant constraints on the application of conventional platform (sea surface) systems. This has, by necessity, generated the rapid growth of sub-sea processing technology. / An integral part of a novel sub-sea natural gas dehydration project is the need to design and develop a communications, monitor and control system that is extremely reliable within a harsh marine environment. The off shore gas gathering and processing facility will be unmanned, therefore the entire ongoing operation of the sub-sea facility, and any sea surface equipment, will be dependent on the proper functioning of the communication system. System redundancy and low power consumption are also important issues. / The continuous bi-directional transmission of information between the field and shore-based control centres, together with the complexity of any maintenance / repair missions requires an extremely highly reliable system. The prospect of false alarms must be maintained at an absolute minimum. / Within this thesis the history and development of ocean based communications up to current state-of-the art technology is reviewed. Based on the unique and demanding requirements of the sub-sea gas processing facility, detailed recommendations are made for both a primary and back-up communication systems that meet the given criteria of being robust and having very low power requirements.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/244338 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Ghadhban, Zaid T. |
| Publisher | Curtin University of Technology, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | unrestricted |
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