Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. Technical Review Vol. 43 No. 1 (Ja n. 2006) 1 The Latest Technology of "CHIKYU", Deep Sea Drill Ship 1. Introduction 1. Int roduction 1. Introduction 1. Int roduction 1. Int roduction "CHIKYU", a deep sea drill ship, was delivered to the Japa n Agency for Marin e-Ea rth Science an d Tec hn ology (JAMSTE C) in J uly 2005. Const ru ction of "CHIKYU", featuring the latest technology in this field, opens up a new era of deep sea drilling, with a scient ific drill ship adopting th e riser dr illing meth od f or the very first time in th e world. This scientific drill ship was bu ilt for the pur poses of clar ifying long-time environmen ta l chan ges in the ear th , exploring lif e in the earth's crust, stu dying the m echan ism of earthqua kes an d so forth , through in- vestigation deep int o the ear th 's core. This paper introduces th e Hoisting Equ ipment, Dual E levator Sys- tem, Core Sam pling System and Waste Mud Treatm ent System t ha t form a part of the new technologies devel- oped an d a dopted in t he bu ilding of "CHIKYU". 2. Hoisting Equ ipment 2. Hoisting Equ ipment 2. Hoisting Equ ipment 2. Hoisting Equ ipment 2. Hoisting Equ ipment The h oisting equipmen t for lifting a nd lowering the drill pipe, the riser pipe and th e Blow-out Preventer (BOP) is installed in the derrick. The ship ha s been engineered to operat e in severe environmen tal conditions, a nywhere in th e world. It is a lso int ended t o be capa ble of riser drill- ing in deeper water and of achieving a drilling depth, deeper th an ever before. Through a nalysis of the balance between the hu ll motion a nd the weight/vertical vibra- tion/strength of the su spended sub-sea equipment u nder these conditions, th e rat ed load of the derrick and hoist- ing equipmen t (Traveling Block, Crown Mount ed Hea ve Compensa tor (CMC), Riser H and ling E quipment, Wire Rope, etc.) of th is ship was designed to be 1250 tons, th e world's largest, in cont ra st to that of most other s imilar oil drill ships, which is approximately 907 tons. Accord- ingly , the d errick an d hoisting equipment of this s hip were specially developed as u p-rated versions, the stren gth of which ha s been confirmed. Good operability an d safety featu res have also been achieved taking into consideration equipment-to-equipment interface, equipment layout, equipment a utomat ion an d so forth . 3. Aut omation of the Dual Elevator System 3. Aut omation of th e Dual Elevator System 3. Aut omation of the Dual Elevator System 3. Aut omation of th e Dual Elevator System 3. Aut omation of the Dual Elevator System During dr illing operation, if th e pipe is suspen ded on the drill floor using a wedge known as 'slips', high st ress is generat ed which makes th e deep drilling impossible. For this reason, existing scientific drill ships adopt the meth od of sus pendin g the pipe by using two elevators alter na tely. However, all work (including at ta ching an d detaching) is performed ma nu ally using two elevators. In the case of "CHIKYU", however, a true dual elevator system for th e integra ted cont rol and operat ion of the two elevators ha s been developed an d adopted. This sys- tem a utomatically detects t he work being done by th e two elevators an d also their operat ing condition a nd with th e provision of various interlocks on a ll equipment , in- cluding peripher al equipment , this enables drilling work to be performed safely and efficiently. Fig. 1 Dual elev ator 1250t 1250t 1250t 1250t 1250t 907.2t 907.2t 680.4 t 453.6 t Tab le 1 Hoisting equipment rated load Hoisting Equipment Rated Load (t) Remarks Travelling Block 1 250 MT Link Riser Handling Elevator Riser Runni ng T ool Crown Block (CMC) Power Swivel (main load path) System Link Dual Elevator Hydraulic Elevator World's largest World's largest World's largest World's largest World's largest Presently in service Presently in service World's first Presently in service integrated control TAKASHI OHMURA* 1 TAKAYUKI YAMAGAMI* 1 TOMOYA INOUE* 2 EIICHI HIGASHI* 1 KAZUYASU WADA* 2 *1 *2 Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works Japan Agency for Marine-Ear th Science and Technology