Predicting marine growth on offshore wind cables. Partner sought.

Predicting roughness on offshore wind (OW) cables is hampered by our lack of knowledge on the type of marine growth (MG) that will develop on the cable overtime. Studies on oil and gas infrastructure, ports and OW gravity foundations cannot reliably inform what grows on OW cables because, unlike other subsea structures, OW cables are always close to the seafloor, are made of different materials to O&G infrastructure, gravity foundations or seawalls in ports. Their colonisation by MG deserves, therefore, a specific study. This is important because a systematic study of MG on OW cables will ascertain whether predictions can be made about what will grow on a subsea cable after its installation. We intend to build a predictive tool based on images of real cables on the sea floor and dynamic cables coated with marine growth. Reach out if you can provide such images, and are interested to collaborate and have the use of the predictive tool when the project is completed.