DCN ©Micro Habitat

With the industry’s increasingly demand for having an ad-hoc / emergency repair technology on aging subsea and offshore assets in combination with the desire to increase the life-span of these asset, DCN’s R&D department has developed a new dry-space repair technology which we refer to as the Micro-Habitat. A development which could not have been possible without DCN’s 60 years’ experience in the design, build and use of industry conventional habitat and cofferdam systems.

Where conventional systems isolates a subsea item after it is dewatered where after divers work inside the habitat in a dry environment, the Micro Habitat is based on an incubator type design principle. It only isolates the defective location where after it is dewatered creating a dry space. The divers works from the outside. Please refer to the photographs in the article for further impressions.

By using the incubator principle the necessary preparations, installation and repair time are significantly reduced.  The smaller footprint of the habitat furthermore reduces the external loading on an already structurally weakened item and the design benefits from an increased diver safety philosophy (no confined space ops). Our Micro-Habitat system furthermore benefits from a modular / standardized design allowing an easy relocation to different repair locations where a conventional habitat and cofferdam systems.

The system has been in-house designed and tested according to a rigorous program in DCN Diving’s Hyperbaric and Wet Testing Centre. Once the incubator concept was confirmed, Diver Welders and the Welding procedure were qualified according to AWS 3.6D standard in DCN’s Hyperbaric Centre at depths ranging from -20 till -140 msw and further in DCN’s Wet Test centre at -4 msw. 

Finally the concept was proved after a successful worlds first completion of a hyperbaric repair.

The patented Micro Habitat technology can be used for many applications underwater and offer a permanently repair solution for wide range of structural defects including but not limited to e.g. subsea structures, pipelines, piles.

For more information, please contact us +31164214343 or info@dcndiving.com.