Insights

It depends on where the cable has to sit in the water column. A neutrally buoyant construction is used when the cable must follow the vehicle or the structure without loading it — ROV tethers, towed arrays, dive support. Where the cable is fixed, armoured or laid on the seabed, a standard water-blocked power construction is simpler and carries more copper per millimetre. Density is a design output, so tell us the working depth and the acceptable in-water weight and the construction follows from that.

The strength member, not the conductor. Aramid or HMPE fibres are sized to the specified working and breaking load and terminated at both ends, so the electrical cores and any fibre unit carry no tension. The jacket and the connector strain relief only have to transfer load into the strength member. If a customer gives a required breaking force, we size the member to it with a margin for terminations.

Yes, and it is usually the reason a hybrid is specified: one cable means one connector set, one penetration and one handling operation. Power cores, twisted signal pairs and single-mode or multi-mode fibre units are laid in separate positions in the core, with individual screening where the signal requires it.

The motion. A drag-chain cable bends repeatedly in a defined radius in one plane, so fine-wire stranding and a low-friction jacket are the priority. A robot joint twists the cable in both directions, so the lay direction, strand construction and jacket compound are chosen for torsion. Using one in the other application shortens life dramatically.

The jacketed cable is wound on a mandrel at the specified closed length and pitch, then heat-set so the coil takes a permanent memory. Recovery depends on the jacket compound and on the stranding being matched to the extension ratio. We ask for the closed length, the extended length and the expected number of extensions.

It is a property of the insulation and jacket combination, not of the range as a whole. Constructions with FEP or PTFE insulation and silicone or high-temperature jackets are used up to around +200 °C, and cold-flexible compounds down to around −60 °C. Tell us the continuous and the excursion temperature and we select the materials accordingly.

Longitudinal water blocking — fillers, tapes and a water-swellable layer under the jacket — so that a jacket breach does not travel the length of the cable, combined with a jacket material that does not absorb water at depth. For connectorised assemblies, the termination itself is potted or moulded and tested as part of the assembly.

Yes. Assemblies include moulded or potted connectors, bulkhead fittings, dummy plugs, pulling grips and lacing, and are tested as a unit. Supplying the assembly removes the interface between cable maker and connector house, which is where most subsea failures start.