ROPE GUIDING DEVICE

摘要

of the disclosure An adjustable two-piece rope guiding device 21, 26, particularly adaptable for use on offshore guyed bower drilling and production structures 11. On such structures it is necessary to deflect a taut guy rope 14 into a direction that may not be precisely known, or that may vary with time. Such deflection must not damage the rope by excessive static or cyclic straining or by wearing. To minimize problems of clearance within the structure the guiding is performed in two parts: 1) a permanent deflection into a direction that satisfies the foregoing clearance reqirements and 2) a variable deflection occuring beyond clearance problems that completes the required total deflection. When guiding the guy ropes 14 of an offshore oil production tower 11 from their vertical orientation at the clamping and jacking (tensioning) devices 20 on the tower to a seafloor anchoring system 15, 16 a first bending member 21 changes the vertical direction of the guy ropes 14 to a selected direction (plane) extending toward such anchoring system 15, 16. A second bending member 26 rotates the rope in a new direction at the periphery of the offshore structure 11 to accommodate positions of the anchoring system 15, 16 with respect to the plane of the selected direction. The first member is a fixed shoe 21 having a grooved rope contacting surface 23 and a sleeve 24. The second member 26 includes an cuter fixed housing 45 and an inner rotatable housing 46 having a grooved surface 48 for contacting the rope. me inner surface of the inner housing 46 may have various configurations depending upon its application. In its use with guyed tower anchoring the inner surface is preferably a three-sided pyramidal configuration 52, 53, 54 one corner of which comprises the grooved rope-contacting surface 48.