Dynamics Of Undersea Cables

• Main Author: Syck, James Marvin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Scholarly Repository 1981
• Subjects: Engineering; Mechanical; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/dissertations/1210

Mathematical models have been used for some time to predict the deformation of undersea cables due to ocean currents; however, there have been very few measurements made that permit verification of model results against observations of cable deformation. A dynamic model and a static model have been used to make calculations of shape for an experimental acoustic array deployed in the North Atlantic Ocean. The calculations were then compared to careful measurement of the shape of the array, which was a cable 6 km long suspended several kilometers above the sea floor. Both models are in qualitative agreement with observation, but they underestimate the magnitude of the maximum deformation by a factor of about 2. This underestimation has been observed before and is commonly attributed to neglect of strumming in the models. Several methods are tried to introduce strumming effects in models, but none are wholly successful. Static models do not fit the experimental data as well as the dynamic model.