Under the Sea

This story is a look back to 1981 and 1982 when staff from Civil Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Computing and Quantitative Studies, Geology and Geophysics and the Media Development Unit worked with Woodside Offshore Petroleum and other consultants and groups on the North Rankin Project.

Our staff were involved in the design and fabrication of a full-scale prototype of an underwater plough, built after the testing of 1:25, 1:20, 1:5 1:3 scale models, which we also worked on. The prototype weighed 200 tonnes and measured 24 metres.

The results informed construction of the underwater plough used to lay a pipeline from a natural gas well 134 kilometres offshore from Dampier.

A secondary project was the design and building of underwater electronic data logging equipment for the offshore testing of the 1:3 scale model.

Eventually, gas from the well would be piped along the coast from Dampier to Bunbury (about 1500 kilometres). The pipeline became known as the Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline (DBNGP), and later as the Dampier Bunbury Pipeline (DBP).

The State Energy Commission of Western Australia (SECWA, now Synergy) was responsible for the overall project, which had many elements to it. A reliable gas supply is now simply part of our lives, but back then this was a major project for the State.

Our involvement in this work came about through a WAIT-Aid project. Established in 1971, WAIT-Aid sought to make “the wide experience available at the Institute available to industry, commerce and the community on a commercial basis”.

Another goal was to help “staff to keep in touch with the needs of business, industry and the community so that they could more effectively prepare students for their future work roles”.

These images show the 1:3 model in test, the prototype full scale model, and some of the construction work.