Did you know that 99% of all data that moves around the world is operated undersea? Internet traffic is driving demand for submarine data cables, which are fiber optic cables laid on the seabed and act as a main link in data transfer between continents. Submarine cable connections can be several thousand kilometers long. Every 50 to 60 kilometers, the data signal running through the cable must be amplified by a repeater. Within these telecommunication systems, a submarine branching unit is also used to allow the cable to split and serve more than one destination, reducing network complexity and improving flexibility of the overall system and infrastructure.

Repeaters and branch units consist of de-mountable parts and feed-throughs, which are hermetically sealed to prevent hydrogen ingress caused by seawater corrosion or electrolysis. Replacement or repair of these units are very expensive due to 8,000 meter water depth deployment, recovery and operation; and therefore should be maintenance free. The subsea telecon equipment is designed to achieve high reliability due to the following conditions:

• Minimum of 25 years service life is required
• Exposure to high levels of hydrogen, high resistance to water pressure of  8,000 meters water depth
• Helium gas testing at an equivalent pressure to the maximum depth of the submarine cable system
• Undersea impact and vibrations during the transportation and placement of the equipment on the seabed

In the last decade, Omniseal Solutions has provided more than 1,000 metal sealing solutions to the industrial telecommunications industry – all without any failures using resilient metal C-Seals. These metal seals are custom designed for the extreme environment and manufactured in Inconel with tin or silver plating, achieving the required leak rate of  8 x 10 ^-9 standard cc/s at 5 MPa (He).

• Hermetically sealing of removable parts , no welding needed
• Custom designed metal sealing solution, 100% in-house manufacturing
• Metal C-Seals engineered to provide reliable and high-performance sealing characteristics