White Paper
Thrustmaster First to equip Z-Drives with Mechanical Fuses for Inland Waterway Operation
Thrustmaster Mechanical Fuse on Z-drives PDF Article – For more than 30 years, Thrustmaster has been building brown water propulsion equipment to excel in even the harshest operating environments. As a highlight of Thrustmaster’s efforts to safeguard our products and exceed expectations in the most demanding conditions, our American-made Z-Drive thrusters for towboats operating in the […]
Thrustmaster’s Z-Drives Making Waves in the US Inland Waterways
By: Johnray Strickland Thrustmaster of Texas, a leading marine propulsion design and manufacturing company based in the U.S., is looking to give a competitive edge to U.S. towboat operators considering a move away from traditional shaft and rudder installations via Thrustmaster’s impressive lineup of American made Z-Drives. Thrustmaster’s Z-Drives, ranging from 500 hp to 8,000 […]
Cut Costs with Speed: Innovations in Fast Supply Vessels’ Propulsion
By: Johnray Strickland As the older offshore oil and gas production fields are approaching the end of their useful life, the industry is moving to deeper waters to find replacement fields. Significant ultra-deepwater fields in water depth greater than 1,500 meters have been found off the coasts of Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico and West […]
Offshore Wind Construction in the U.S. – Opportunities for Effective Conversions of Existing Jack-Ups into Wind Turbine Installation Vessels
By: Johnray Strickland Thrustmaster of Texas, a leading marine propulsion design and manufacturing company in the U.S., is looking to give an edge to U.S. based marine jack-up operators wanting to enter the U.S. offshore wind farm construction and maintenance sector by cutting the cost of entry in half with a unique propulsion system that […]
Retractable Drillship Thrusters with Compact Canisters
By: Joe Bekker, President Thrustmaster of Texas, Inc. Offshore Exploration As offshore oil and gas exploration continues to move into deeper waters, drilling deeper wells, the environmental demands that drillships must meet foster a need for more sophisticated and expensive equipment. Today’s ultra-deep water drillships demand day rates upwards of US$ 500,000. It certainly gives […]
Portable Dynamic Positioning Systems Upgrade Package
A unique system for dynamic positioning of vessels, barges and floating structures of any size. For a detailed tailored proposal to your application, please contact our sales department. More Information PDPS Description Paper PDPS Brochure Portable DPS Shallow Water Applications
Portable Dynamic Positioning Systems (PDPS) White Paper
Since their introduction in the early 1960’s, dynamic positioning systems continue to become more commonplace in the offshore industries. The first dynamic positioning systems were used exclusively for deep sea drilling applications. As these systems became more reliable and more affordable, they found their way into many other applications, including pipe laying, cable laying, offshore […]
Portable DPS Shallow Water Applications
Introduction Lake Maracaibo is a large fresh water Lake in Northwestern Venezuela. It measures about 100 miles from North to South and about 80 miles from East to West at its widest point. The lake is connected at its Northern end to the Gulf of Venezuela through a narrow channel of about 5 miles wide. […]
Hydraulic Tunnel Thrusters White Paper
Hydraulic tunnel thrusters are available from 16″ to 86″ diameter and range from 35 to 2000 HP. The hydrostatic transmission provides proportional propeller speed control in both directions, thereby eliminating the need for controllable pitch propellers. Each thruster comes as a complete package, with a short tunnel assembly and a robust four-blade, high-thrust propeller on […]
Is a Retractable Better Than a Tunnel Thruster?
As oil and gas exploration moves into deeper waters, we see an increased demand for bow thrusters. OSVs and crew boats are getting larger and are becoming more difficult to dock. Deep-water drillers and producers don’t allow support vessels to dock at their platforms and demand that vessels hold station in open sea while offloading […]
Bow Boat for Barge Tows
The other skippers shake their heads in disbelief. They have been windbound for two days, but Breathwit Marine Contractors still runs a 3 barge empty tow at 7 knots. The West end of the Intercoastal Canal with all its narrow bends, river crossings and locks is hard enough to maneuver in nice weather. But with […]
DP Conversions of Existing Vessels with Thrustmaster’s Modular DPS
Abstract As older offshore production areas become more congested and new exploration moves to deeper waters, the demand for dynamically positioned vessels, barges and platforms increases rapidly. Rather than scrapping older vessels and replacing them with DP-capable newbuilts, many existing vessels and rigs can be upgraded for DP at a fraction of the cost of […]
Tips For Noise-Critical Tunnel Thruster Installations
Tunnel thrusters have a bad reputation for being noisy. Since some thrusters are used only for short periods of time during docking, a noisy thruster may occasionally be acceptable for certain applications. However, there are many applications where noise is critical, and a noisy thruster is not acceptable, even if it is used only for […]
Tips on Thruster Selection
A bow thruster used for docking and undocking should be capable of producing thrust in pounds of force (lbf) equal to twice the lateral cross sectional vessel area below the water in square feet or two to three times the lateral cross sectional area of the superstructure above the water, whichever is greater. Sizing of […]
Portable Dynamic Positioning: Opportunity for Short-Term Projects
Increased activity in offshore petroleum exploration and both pipe and cable lay has led to the need for vessels with true dynamic positioning (DP) capability. This need is the product of both exploration in deeper offshore waters and the infrastructure congestion of mature undersea fields. Conventional mooring systems utilizing anchors and anchor handling vessels are not practical in […]
Tips on Thruster Installation
Thrustmaster tunnel thrusters are easy to install. The whole unit has already been installed in a section of tunnel and all you need to do is install this section of tunnel in the hull. With hydraulic tunnel thrusters, orientation is not critical. You can direct the strut opening straight upward, down, fore, aft, or […]
Hydraulic Power Systems and Controls
Thrustmaster hydraulic tunnel thrusters can be powered by open loop or closed loop hydraulic systems. The simplest and least expensive system is an open loop system using a fixed-displacement pump and a directional control (“bang-bang”) valve. The valve is solenoid operated and controlled with an electrical signal from the joystick in the pilot house (See Figure 1 […]
Thrusters On Semi-Submersibles And The Coanda Effect
Thrustmaster of Texas, Inc. The Coanda effect is the phenomenon in which a jet flow attaches itself to a nearby surface and remains attached even when the surface curves away from the initial jet direction. The phenomenon derives its name from a Romanian born aeronautical engineer – Henri Coanda. In free surroundings, a jet of […]