Development and Sea Trials of a Deep-sea Energy Storage Buoyancy Regulating System

Buoyancy regulating system is widely applied in deep-sea equipment, and related power consumption increases as working depth going deeper, which is a very real concern. A novel energy storage technology was proposed and validated during past work. This paper presented the latest research and development of the deep-sea energy storage buoyancy regulating system. Application of hydraulic accumulator brought benefit of energy conservation, but also the problem of bi-directional pressure resistant and sealing. An external oil bladder made up by bellows air spring was proposed to precisely control the buoyancy regulating. Overall operation procedures were recommended to introduce the working pattern. At last, deep-sea trials were presented to demonstrate the actual performance and advantage of proposed energy storage buoyancy regulating system.