NEWSLETTER

EQE Joint Industry Project - Offshore On-line Monitoring

The roots of the Joint Industry Project (JIP) led by EQE can be traced back to a SIMONet seminar at University College London last year. The major conclusion from an earlier JIP on Flooded Member Detection (FMD) was that the inherent redundancy of many offshore structures is the major factor that allows the use of FMD as a means of structural integrity assurance. The only platforms for which FMD cannot be proven as a viable method are those with low redundancy ie those for which on-line monitoring (OLM) is ideal. The aim of the project is to demonstrate the types of structures and structural members for which OLM may be used to assure structural integrity. In essence, this is being done as a two pronged approach.

As part of the JIP, Fugro are examining the ways in which they have traditionally collected and interpreted their data to see if they can improve upon their quoted sensitivites and reliabilities of the method for detecting changes in structural response. Fugro have nearly completed this part of the work and the results are very encouraging indeed.

EQE have been involved in several studies concerning structural integrity of offshore platforms, and additionally as inspection planning for individual operators. As such, they are very well aware of the importance that structural redundancy plays in the overall reliability of these platforms. What EQE proposed to do in the JIP was to perform ultimate strength and modal analyses on a variety of offshore installations with different levels of redundancy. The results arising from these analyses will then be used to examine whether it will be possible to improve structural reliability by using OLM alone, or a combination of OLM and FMD.

The six sponsors and installations to be analysed are

Texaco : (Erskine)
Kerr McGee : (Ninian South)
Statoil : (Kvitebjorn -newbuild to have several monitoring systems installed)
TotalFinaElf : (Dunbar)
BP : WAP, (Ravenspurn)
HSE : (Five 'pseudo' jackets designed with different bracing configurations, but nominally to operate in the same location)

So far, the improvement in data analysis and the analysis results suggest that OLM may be used for just about all four legged jackets.

The project is expected to be concluded by the end of October. Contact: Dave Sanderson (dsanderson@eqe.co.uk)