A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of co-presenting my first Akselos webinar alongside Hans Kolsters from Shell. We talked about Shell’s use of Predictive Digital Twins to reduce opex and EXTEND THE LIFE OF AGEING OFFSHORE ASSETS.
With just under 400 people from oil and gas operators and the supply chain signed up, the use of digital twins for structural assessment is clearly a topic of great interest.
I talked through the technology that underpins Akselos’ solutions – simulation models of a kind never seen before. We discussed the power of changing the process of structural assessment to allow for real time updates to provide a continuous picture of structural integrity. A revolution for structural engineers!
Hans Kolsters, one of Shell’s senior offshore structures engineers, then talked us through the real life application of the technology on both a fixed and a floating asset. He mentioned how Shell are using our technology to drive operational decisions, optimise operations and safely extend the life of ageing assets. Our attendees were intrigued to hear about the workflow, value drivers and future plans for this kind of tech, directly from the operator’s point of view.
What we’re working on with Shell really is a first for the industry, no other company has built a sensor-enabled, detailed 3D, physics-based digital twin of an entire asset. The excitement around the transformative impact this could have was evident in our Q&A session, where around a quarter of attendees were asking for more information relative to their own challenges.
David Knezevic, our CTO, was on hand to do a deep dive into the mathematics during the Q&A, and answered a wide spectrum of really interesting questions covering things like the accuracy of the simulation as it speeds up, mesh sizes in full spectral analysis and details of the sensors used to monitor accumulated fatigue.
I’ve been working in the simulation space for over 25 years – and I’ve never seen simulations quite like this.
By Chris Smith, sales director of Northern Europe