ASABE Technical Library - Abstract
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Retrieval Forces Acting on Buried Telecommunication Cables
Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org
Citation: Paper number 021087, 2002 ASAE Annual Meeting . (doi: 10.13031/2013.10374) @2002Authors: R J Godwin., M J O’Dogherty.; M J Hann, P, Hart; K Dicker
Keywords: Soil mechanics, cable recovery, sea bed
The work described was conducted to assess the magnitude of the vertical forces required to
recover deep-buried cables from the seabed for a range of depths cable diameters and soil conditions.
Experimental work was carried out in a laboratory soil bin for (a) a peel-out condition and (b) a bight pull
condition and further work was conducted in field conditions for a bight pull situation. A mathematical model
was developed based on three-dimensional crescent soil failure to a critical depth together with lateral failure
down to the burial depth to predict the forces. Further force components took account of cable soil friction,
cable pre-tension and cable weight.
Good overall correlation between predicted and measured vertical forces was found for the laboratory peel-out
and bight pull situations, with a mean difference ranging from 7.3% to 10.4%. The correlation for the field
experiments was acceptable with a mean difference of 13.6%.