A Low-Power Consumption Deepwater Subsea Electric Gate Valve Actuator, Part A: Prototype and Test

All-electric systems represent the current development trend in subsea control systems, and the subsea electric gate valve actuator is the core equipment item in all-electric subsea control systems. To solve the problems of the traditional subsea electric gate valve actuator with low safety, poor reliability, and high energy consumption, in this paper, a new subsea electric gate valve actuator configuration concept is proposed, where the actuator has a redundant drive, a low-power holding function, a fail-safe shutdown mechanism, an emergency operation capability, and other functions. An actuator prototype was developed, an actuator integration test system was constructed, and the prototype actuator was combined with a standard subsea gate valve, an all-electric subsea control module, and other equipment to conduct several functional tests. The test results show that the actuator functions and performance indicators meet the designed requirements. Compared with the existing actuators, in addition to high reliability and safety, the driving power consumption can be reduced by 5% and holding power consumption can be reduced by 40%.