Instrument: Traction Winch

The traction winch, as it pertains to marine deep water applications, is the primary component of a system designed to provide a significant tractive or load-bearing effort to subsea cable or umbilical. Conventional traction winch systems utilize two sheaves with multiple cable grooves to apply this tractive effort via elliptically reeving cable around the two sheaves. Advancements in sampling instrument packages and vehicles to perform more complex, intervention tasks at greater depths have placed greater demands on the cables and umbilicals linking them to the surface. The traction winch system was designed to address the challenges associated with increased wire or cable tension. (information is from Chapter 11 'Double Drum Traction Winch Systems for Oceanographic Research', in the HANDBOOK OF OCEANOGRAPHIC WINCH, WIRE AND CABLE TECHNOLOGY, 3rd Edition, 2001, Editor, John Bash, http://www.unols.org/publications/winch_wire_handbook__3rd_ed/)