Royal Dutch Shell, a global energy company, seeks startups for automating management of their offshore assets. They are looking to develop digital tools to reduce the cost and improve the safety of inspection, maintenance, and repair of these offshore assets.
There are three topic areas:
Domain Expertise - For structural integrity analysis, they utilize data available (experimental and actual) to develop improved response models. For most of the critical elements, the failure modes are similar. This upcoming workshop will focus on the structural and mechanical failure modes (not material and metallurgical).
Sensors and Automation - Currently most of the information on the current condition of the asset is collected manually. The objective of this program will be to obtain information on the current condition of the assets through sensors and automation. Two problems related to this are: Data required to convert existing assets into a structural twin and Data and sensors needed for new assets. The development of robotic tools is out of scope for the workshop. The workshop will focus on linking the digital and robotic program. The virtual model will interact with the physical asset through robots.
Computational Methods - Simulation of the response of offshore structures is computationally expensive and time consuming. The objective of the program will be to develop reduced order models to simulate the behavior of the structures and link it to integrity management. Another aspect is to use advanced techniques to improve models for complex failure modes, such as fatigue crack growth and vortex induced vibration.
The next step would be a workshop including the CTO, several members of Corporate R&D, and folks from the offshore operations team. The workshop will be held at MIT on April 24. They are planning to start projects as early as this summer.
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