Cutting a Material That Hardens the More You Work It
DOF Subsea wanted a contingency for releasing subsea pressure caps from a manifold jumper. Inconel shafts ran through the caps, and nobody wanted to find out on the seabed whether diamond wire would go through Inconel.
- Client
- DOF Subsea
- Location
- Singapore
- Equipment
- Diamond wire saw DWS 1230
- Scope
- Contingency cutting capability
- DWS 1230 Cuts from 12 to 30 inches
- Two Proving cuts, both onshore
- Inconel Superalloy shaft, cut through
- ROV Any depth an ROV is functional
The problem
DOF Subsea needed a contingency tool able to cut through subsea pressure caps and the internal Inconel shafts inside them, in order to release the caps from a manifold jumper. Inconel is the awkward part. It strengthens under plastic deformation. That is why it is specified in a wellhead, and why a cutting method proven on carbon steel proves nothing here.
What we did
We were confident a diamond wire saw would take it, but confidence is not a contingency plan. A test cut through Inconel was completed in our own yard first. With that established, the DWS 1230 — a saw covering cuts from twelve to thirty inches — was put to a second test cut, this time through the entire pressure cap and the internal Inconel shafts together, as the tool would meet them offshore.
What it established
The saw cut the pressure cap and released it, shaft and all, not a coupon of it. Diamond wire will take superalloys, so a cutting scope no longer has to route around them.
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