Damage assessment for submarine photoelectric composite cable under anchor impact

The impact of dropped anchor on submarine photoelectric composite cables may possibly cause electrical faults, i.e. electricity and optical signal transmission failure. In order to study the impact capacity and structural impact failure mechanism, a test setup is designed originally to examine the structural and functional integrity. A detailed finite element model (FEM) is created, considering material nonlinearity and component interaction. A parametric analysis has been performed to predict the deformation of components and impact forces, under different impact velocities and collision directions. Relationships between the armor layer indentation rate and that of internal power and optical units are achieved. The impact deformation of internal entities can be evaluated intuitively by armor layer indentation. The proposed experimental and numerical methods are well correlated, suitable to assess the impact capacity of subsea power cables and assist the protection design of subsea power cables in engineering.