A marine floating hose is essentially a tube, for conveying liquids, that is reinforced and covered in such a way that it can survive in an offshore environment. The basic marine construction consists of the tube, spiral reinforcement, and cover layers.
Floating hoses include layers of foam material under the cover to provide the minimum buoyancy required by the OCIMF specification.
The tube is of paramount importance to the successful working life of the hose. The rubber compound is constantly exposed to crude oil and the adhesion between the inner lining and the adjacent carcass must work against the forces created by the flow of crude oil through the hose.
An important type of marine floating hose is double carcass hose which is designed that if the main carcass fails, the secondary carcass contains the leak and protects the ambient environment. An alarm system alerts the operator when the primary carcass fails. But what if the secondary carcass fails? For the double carcass hose concept to really work there must also be a way to check the secondary carcass. Dual Anti-pollution Safety Hose (D.A.S.H.) has the only failure alert device (FAD) on the market that monitors the integrity of the primary AND secondary carcasses.
