Digital twins are transforming the decision-making and planning processes in the offshore oil and gas, renewables and maritime sectors. As virtual replicas of physical assets, digital twins make it possible to realistically simulate complex offshore installations, train for and anticipate multiple operational scenarios months or weeks in advance and yield significant safety and cost benefits. Using fully connected simulations, operators can even glimpse a few minutes into the future during an actual operation.
This article was first published in Offshore Support Journal's December 2019 issue
Dave Woessner and the team at Heerema Marine Contractor’s (HMC) simulation center are using digital twin technology delivered by Kongsberg Digital to realistically simulate complex operational scenarios. To HMC, the digital twins are a “force multiplier” for the company’s offshore operations
Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) was an early adopter of digital twin technology. The Dutch offshore oil and gas marine contractor owns and operates a fleet of specialised crane and construction vessels and has been using digital twin solutions from Norway’s Kongsberg Digital (KDI) at the Heerema Simulation Centre to support complex heavy-lift projects.
By applying KDI simulators to explore and test challenging and critical installations in the lab before going offshore to start the project, HMC says it can reduce risk and simultaneously improve safety and efficiency, providing its workforce with a clear picture in advance of operations commencing. This had led HMC to label KDI’s digital twins as a ‘force multiplier’ for offshore operations.
“By adopting this methodology, HMC can subject new and innovative concepts to rigorous pre-testing in the virtual realm before committing to the expense and logistical issues involved when turning such concepts into reality,” says HMC simulation and visual design team lead Dave Woessner.
HMC’s Kongsberg Digital simulators use a DNV-GL-certified K-Sim offshore simulator facility with two offshore crane operator domes, winch operation stations and a full mission bridge that has DP simulation capability.
Verification, testing and training prior to mission is carried out in Kongsberg Digital's K-Sim Offshore Crane Simulator at HMC, to improve safety and efficiency in the demanding operations.
Using the K-Sim Offshore technology as a platform, KONGSBERG and HMC developed detailed models of the HMC deep-water construction vessels Sleipnir, Thialf, Balder and Aegir in addition to several support assets and vessels. Used for operator training, the models are constantly being improved and refined with data captured from live operations. The fidelity of the models ensures that HMC can trial any planned operation in its simulators and find out exactly what will happen at sea under various conditions.
Digital twin technology allowed HMC to test its quad lifting concept in advance of actual operations.
In quad lifting four cranes are deployed in parallel, simultaneously, as a means of enabling topside structures to be built onshore as a complete item during commissioning, saving significant manhours and reducing project costs.
The KDI simulators in the Heerema Simulation Centre were initially used to assess the feasibility of the quad lifting procedure before being tasked with evaluating its practical worth through subsequent simulation testing. The tests covered various aspects of the projected operation, from rehearsing communication protocols to acknowledging that human intervention could impact upon mission outcomes, and building failure cases into the programme to prepare trainees with as wide a range of scenarios as possible.
Operating in dynamic positioning mode, HMC’s semi-submersible crane vessels Balder and Thialf performed a successful quad lifting trial in the Gulf of Mexico in October 2018. Plans are now under way for what HMC is calling “the ultimate quad lift,” with a combined lifting capacity of 34,000 tonnes, with the firm’s Sleipnir semi-submersible crane vessel – the largest ever constructed.
“It effectively opens up a whole new array of possibilities from the commissioning and design phases of jackets and topsides onwards, leading to a situation whereby these structures can be routinely installed on all types of foundations,” says HMC chief executive Koos-Jan van Brouwershaven.
Other HMC projects where KDI’s digital twin has delivered enhancements include a FEED study for the installation of a 1,000-tonne module on a floating production unit, where concept design of bumpers and guides, verification of complex set-down behaviour and studies of the DP behaviour and settings were all explored. For Statoil’s Peregrino project in Brazil’s Campos basin, HMC used the system to test the set-down of several modules, enabling it to define the sequence and test concepts with local conditions, among other factors.