As part of Hydraulics & Pneumatics, I had the opportunity to attend the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston last week. This was very large show with many, many fluid power component manufacturers.

While visiting many of these manufacturer's booths and learning about new products being launched at the show, I also had the opportunity to sit-in on a press conference for Castrol's new eco-friendly hydraulic fluid.

Did anyone have the opportunity to attend this show? Were there any particular products, booths or sessions that you attended/found useful? Please share...

Here is a picture of the Reliant Stadium-portion of the Exhibitor Hall (home of the Houston Texans as well):

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I was there. What isn't shown by your picture is that the main hall is much bigger than the stadium and there was a temporary tent with as much floor space as the stadium. The show was big. We hurried through the show and it took almost two days. We were just able to prospect for leads and didn't have much time to qualify them because we had so much ground to cover. No time for idle chit chat.

I was scouting for motion control applications. The oil and gas industry's idea of motion control is closer to Bud's than mine but there are few possibilities.

I wonder what would happen if we had a booth there? The booths don't show a lot of motion control but there must be some there. Most of what I saw was just opening and closing valves.

Peter - great point about the size of the show - sadly, many of my in-the-exhibit hall photos turned out poorly.

Actually, I am glad you brought of the motion control-aspect of OTC...H&P Editor Alan Hitchcox and I were traveling the floor and happened to stop by the Bosch Rexroth booth and found a great motion control-type demonstation there (which, if you're me, you wouldn't expect from B.R.)...

They had a decent-sized demo of what could be viewed of as a ship that would have a "christmas tree" tethered to and would be at a very deep depth. The "ship" was pitching this way and that way to demonstrate the rough surface conditions with large waves that a ship could face...however, their surge/heave compensating products were being shown on the "ship" releasing and pulling in the tether line in and out in such a way that the sub-surface equipment would not move hardly at all! I found this demostration to be very informative and very applicable...

...I only wish I'd taken some video!

Here is the only Exhibitor Hall pic that turned out at all...

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Originally posted by tlazar:
Here is the only Exhibitor Hall pic that turned out at all...

I don't think I could do much better without a real flash and/or a camera stand.

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They had a decent-sized demo of what could be viewed of as a ship that would have a "christmas tree" tethered to and would be at a very deep depth. The "ship" was pitching this way and that way to demonstrate the rough surface conditions with large waves that a ship could face...however, their surge/heave compensating products were being shown on the "ship" releasing and pulling in the tether line in and out in such a way that the sub-surface equipment would not move hardly at all! I found this demostration to be very informative and very applicable...

Yes, a combination of position and tension/force control. Coordinating 3 tethers requires a supervisor program to coordinate the positions and tensions on multiple winches. There is a lot of math involved with keeping maintaining the position when the tide goes up and down.

Thanks Peter - actually, we took some video at OTC too and have it posted at YouTube. Please see the following of myself and Editor-in-Chief Alan Hitchcox:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KJqBD0P-Syc
http://youtube.com/watch?v=boR5xBVKGjM

About that complicated tethering system...is this something that Delta gets involved with? I'd love to learn more about it (with my limited engineering background keeping me from actually being involved with it).

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About that complicated tethering system...is this something that Delta gets involved with?

I would like to. We got some leads to pursue. We can handle the position/force aspects but there must be a supervisor program that compares the actual GPS position with the target position. The angle and distance between the target and actual position must be calculated. Then this error must be translated to corrections that each of the tethers need to make. This involves some trigonometry. Two cables may need to pull in at different rates and the third tether will have to let the tether out. This all depends on the angle of the tethers relative to the angle of the desired correction. The real trick is keeping the error 0 against currents and changes in the sea level due to tides and even storms. A rising tide would increase the tension on all tethers so there must be a an algorithm that keeps the average tension in a certain range. The difference in tensions would offset later forces such as currents. Fortunately these things change very slowly. I deal in the millisecond range. These controls can probably update every second and still be fast enough.

Another nice thing about trade shows like OTC are the after-show festivities...please see the images below from Oil Air Hydraulics' Vegas Nite at the nearby Houston Improv. This was a great opportunity to see fluid power people outside of the normal situations we meet in and to have some fun.

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...here is another:

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Another great OTC event I had the opportunity attend was the Hydraquip Distribution annual Crawfish Boil...what a great southern-themed event! Did you have the opportunity to go?

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Here is another image from this event...