Reply To Solution for Stopping Gulf Oil Spill

This entry is a reply to the Youtube video attached here. First of all, I agree with the two possible solutions suggested by John and if you watch the video, his explanation and video animation clearly shows that his methods are better than what BP has done. The purpose of my entry is to suggest minor a modification to John’s solution. I know BP has already gone through with their own solution (LMRP cap) but being an engineering student, I can’t stop to think of some other solution that could work better than what BP has done.

Based on what John had suggested, I realize that there is one big issue that could result to failure in his method; the large wing nut and the threaded rod. Certain flaws regarding the usage of the large wing nut & threaded rod:

• With oil gushing through the pipe at high pressure, it is almost possible that the threaded rod might bend, thus preventing it to move into place. Once the rod is bent, you cant do anything else but to remove the whole coupling device. Cutting and removing the bent rod is almost impossible due to the oil gushing at high pressure.
• If the threaded rod did not bend, then it might get stuck due to oil residue or even sand trapped in between the threads of the rod. With the oil flowing at high speed, almost anything tiny around its flowing path will be sucked towards the oil flow.
• It might take a while for the ROV to rotate the wing nut so that the riser plate gets into place. While that happens some other problems might occur.

What we require when implementing this very method is speed. With the high pressure coming out through the oil flow, we could utilize the pressure in order to secure the riser plate. With that in mind I’m suggesting that:

• The threaded rod and large wing nut should be removed
• With the same design, we could modify that base of the riser plate so that it is inclined. The inclination combined with high pressure/high speed oil flow will push the riser plate sliding into place immediately once the oil starts to flow into the riser. ROV will then secure the bolts around the rim of the coupler to create a firm seal between the coupling device and the riser.

Illustration of the suggested modification for the coupling device

*Amateur illustration. Didn’t have the time to do this in Autocad/Solidwork due to exams