Please fill in the name of the

event you are preparing this Offshore Europe

manuscript for.
Please fill in your 6-digit
SPE-195762-MS
SPE manuscript number.
PREDICTIVE DIGITAL TWINS FOR STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY
Please fill in your manuscript
MANAGEMENT AND ASSET LIFE EXTENSION – JIP CONCEPT
title.
AND RESULTS

Please fill in your author name(s) and company affiliation.

Given Name Surname Company
David Knezevic Akselos
Emmanuel Fakas Royal Dutch Shell
Hans Jorgen Riber LIC Engineering

This template is provided to give authors a basic shell for preparing your manuscript for submittal to an
SPE meeting or event. Styles have been included (Head1, Head2, Para, FigCaption, etc) to give you an
idea of how your finalized paper will look before it is published by SPE. All manuscripts submitted to
SPE will be extracted from this template and tagged into an XML format; SPE’s standardized styles
and fonts will be used when laying out the final manuscript. Links will be added to your manuscript for
references, tables, and equations. Figures and tables should be placed directly after the first paragraph
they are mentioned in. The technical content of your paper WILL NOT be changed. Please start your
manuscript below.

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a Digital Twin concept aimed at assets in the oil & gas and wind industry, that provides
an accurate estimate of the true fatigue life of these assets in order to unlock potential fatigue life and
ultimately extend the life of assets. This concept is divided in four tiers that allow to unlock remaining
fatigue life one after the other. The first tier consists of using a high-resolution finite element model of the
asset, delivered by Akselos unique RB-FEA technology. The subsequent tiers consist in using data from
a few strategically placed accelerometers, as well as wave radar recordings, in order to calibrate the model
and estimate the real loading on the asset. This concept delivers a true digital twin of the asset and offers
a compelling and cost-effective method for offshore assets that are facing life time extension beyond what
current methodologies can provide. The concept is being implemented on one of Shell’s platforms in the
Southern North Sea.

INTRODUCTION

In order to properly assess the fatigue life of jacket structures, it is important to go beyond design analyses
and to consider condition-based modelling. Several studies have shown that design conditions and real-
world conditions can be significantly different. Some of the main sources of inaccuracy in current design
estimates of jackets are the local joint stiffnesses, the soil stiffness and damping, and the environmental
loading (Cook, 1982)(Jensen, 1990)(HSE, 2002) (Dubois, 2013). This paper presents a 4 tier concept of
2

how to identify and remove the inherent uncertainties in structural and load modeling by use of real-time
sensor data of structural response and environmental load combined with faster and more accurate
numerical modelling techniques. This results in a shift from design fatigue life to an accurate estimate of
the true fatigue life of offshore assets. For the interested reader, the technical details of the concept are
described in a previous paper (Pedersen and Jørgensen, 2019). Below is a summary of the four tiers (Figure
1) that will be described in more details in the subsequent parts.

TIER 1 - High-resolution modelling of asset (RB-FEA).

TIER 2 - Update model to reflect real-world conditions (Digital Twin).
TIER 3 - Fatigue calculations based on continuous monitoring.
TIER 4 - Statistical correlation between sea states and fatigue damage. Retrospective fatigue calculation.

Figure 1 - Potential life time extension

TIER 1 - HIGH-RESOLUTION MODELLING OF ASSET (RB-FEA)

Accurate modelling of complex structural parts is important as the local stiffness of these parts dictate the
local stress distribution that will drive the fatigue damage. Traditionally, joints have been modelled using
beam elements but this has been shown to lead to overconservative fatigue calculations (HSE, 2002)
(Schaumann, 2007) (Dubois, 2013). Springs can be incorporated into the beam model to take into account
the additional flexibility of the joints (Local Joint Flexibility -- LJF) (Buitrago, 1993). An even more
accurate approach is to directly include the joint as shell or solid elements embedded into a superlement.
The three approaches are illustrated in Figure 2.
 3

Figure 2. Rigid, LJF and superelement modelling of T-joint, Schaumann (2007).

The industry has not widely adopted the superelement approach, as it is significantly more
computationally expensive than beam elements. The RB-FEA method, used in Akselos Integra, addresses
both simulation accuracy and simulation time. With the RB-FEA method, the solution is accelerated up
to 1000 times compared to conventional FEA (Akselos, 2018), which makes highly complex and large
models a practical reality at virtually no additional computational cost. As an example, we show the stress
distribution in an Akselos model that combines traditional beam elements for braces with shell elements
for the joints, see Figure 3. Note that the shell element meshes for the joints are fully compliant with
DNVGL-RP-C203, satisfying an element size equal to the material thickness (“1t”) around the hotspots.

Figure 3. Resulting stresses in a combined beam-shell element model, using RB-FEA technology.

TIER 2 - UPDATE MODEL TO REFLECT REAL-WORLD CONDITIONS (DIGITAL TWIN).

A Digital Twin, i.e. a finite element (FE) representation of the real-world asset needs to be created. An as-
designed FE model will typically have discrepancies compared to the real-world asset, which needs to be
identified and mitigated in a calibration procedure. The primary tool of identification is operational modal
analysis (OMA), see Brincker et al. (2015). Using OMA, the modal parameters (natural frequencies,
damping, eigenmodes) can be identified from acceleration measurements of the real-world asset in its
operational state. The modal parameters directly relate to the matrices on the left-hand side of the equation
of motion, i.e. mass, damping, stiffness and can be used to evaluate how well the numerical model
represents the real-world conditions. If there is a good match between the design model and the real-world
model, based on evaluation on modal parameters, a Digital Twin has been established. Most likely, an
initial good match will not be achieved and the numerical model will have to be updated to better represent
real-world conditions. A general methodology of how model updating should be carried out can not be
given, as it is case-by-case specific, but important factors for offshore assets are top-side mass, soil
stiffness and damping, as well as hydrodynamic coefficients. The procedure for establishing a Digital
Twin is illustrated in Figure 4.
4

Figure 4. Procedure for establishing a Digital Twin.

TIER 3 - FATIGUE CALCULATIONS BASED ON CONTINUOUS MONITORING.

Traditional fatigue computations are based on sea states from historical data. There is no guarantee that
historical data is a good predictor of the future sea states, especially in a changing climate. The first step
within Tier 3 is to compute fatigue damage by using the actual sea states as they are continuously recorded.

Another assumption of traditional fatigue analysis is to use a JONSWAP spectrum (for the North Sea) for
each sea state. The JONSWAP model is in fact an average and can not match exactly the spectrum of a
given sea state. Figure 5 shows a comparison between an actual wave spectrum as recorded by a buoy and
its “best fit” JONSWAP equivalent.

Figure 5. Comparison between the JONSWAP spectrum and Fourier transform of buoy data for a given
sea state.
 5

By using the time series of a nearby buoy/wave radar, it is possible to compute the exact wave spectrum
of a given sea state, instead of using the JONSWAP model. Then this real wave spectrum can be used as
an input for the fatigue computations, augmenting the accuracy of the predictions.

TIER 4 - RETROSPECTIVE CALCULATION OF TRUE FATIGUE LIFE

Once tier 3 of the concept has been applied over a representative period of time (at least one year) there is
a strong enough statistical basis to establish a correlation between sea states and the associated fatigue
damage. With our concept, we can observe actual realizations of a given sea state and their associated true
fatigue damage from tier 3, to compute a more realistic average fatigue damage associated to a certain sea
state.

Once these correlations have been confidently established, it is possible to look back at the database of
sea states that has been recorded since the asset installation, and do a retrospective calculation of the
fatigue damage that has occurred since installation. Care should be taken in accounting for the evolution
of the structural model between installation and current time (e.g. stiffening of the soil, top-side mass
variations).

JIP RESULTS

One of Shell’s platforms in the North Sea has been selected for this JIP. It is nearing the end of its design
life (50 years) and Shell would like to operate it for 20 more years. We first ran a traditional fatigue
analysis with a full beam element structural model, and we found out that several joints were not satisfying
the fatigue threshold required for life extension.

We applied tier 1 of our concept to the structural model of this asset, updating the models of critical joints
from beam elements to much more accurate shell elements. The shell meshes are compliant with DNVGL
RP C203, having a 1t element size around the hotspots. By using more accurate modeling of the joints,
the results of the fatigue analysis were significantly different, and we observed longer predicted fatigue
lives, by a factor 10 on average. This is illustrated in Figure 6.
6

Figure 6. The table shows fatigue values for the critical locations with the lowest calculated fatigue lives.
Values are dimensionless: for the full beam element model, all values are normalized to unity. For the
enhanced model with shell elements, we report the increase (multiplicative factor) compared to the result
obtained with beam elements. In the full beam element model, we calculated fatigue lives below threshold
for five different joints. After updating the model with shell elements, all joints are passing the threshold.

The project is currently running the tier 2 phase. Accelerometers have recently been installed on the asset
and a first batch of data has been collected. We are now looking at calibrating the structural model to
better match the sensor data in order to obtain a true digital twin of the asset. The first results of tier 2
should be available in early September 2019.

CONCLUSIONS

Over the next decade, around 80% of all European oil platforms will have exceeded their original design
life. With the increasing age of these platforms, it is becoming increasingly difficult to warrant life time
extension using existing methodologies.

A four tier concept has been presented that addresses the inherent uncertainties when modelling offshore
assets. The combination of sensors with a calibrated and highly detailed structural finite element model,
allows to compute an accurate representation of the real asset. This in turn will increase the predicted
fatigue life of assets compared to current methodologies.

This concept is implemented on one of Shell’s platform and the first results have already shown longer
predicted fatigue lives compared to traditional methodologies. This will support Shell in building the
safety case regarding life extension of the asset, as well as optimizing inspection planning.

REFERENCES

Akselos (2018). “Component-Based Reduced Basis Simulations”. https://akselos.com/learning-center-

2/white-papers.
Brincker, R., and Ventura, C. (2015). “Introduction to Operational Modal Analysis”, Wiley.
Buitrago, J, Healy, B E and Chang, T Y (1993). “Local Joint Flexibility of Tubular Joints” Proceedings,
OMAE 1993, 12th Intl Conf on Offshore.
Mechanics & Arctic Engineering, Vol I, P405.
Cook, F, Michael and Vandiver, Kim, J (1982). “Measured and Predicted Dynamic Response of a Single
Pile Platform to Random Wave Excitation” OTC 4285.
DNVGL-RP-C203 (2016). “DNVGL-RP-C203 - Fatigue design of offshore steel structures”.
DNVGL-RP-C205 (2017). “DNVGL-RP-C205 - Environmental conditions and environmental loads”.
Dubois, J, Muskulus, M and Schaumann, P (2013). “Advanced Representation of Tubular Joints in Jacket
Models for Offshore Wind Turbine.
Simulation” Energy Procedia, Volume 35, 2013, Pages 234-243.
Hasselmann, K. et al. (1973). “Measurements of wind-wave growth and swell decay during the Joint North
Sea Wave Project (JONSWAP)”.
Ergänzungsheft zur Deutschen Hydrographischen Zeitschrift Reihe A, Nr. 12.
Health and Safety Executive (2002). “The effects of local joint flexibility on the reliability of fatigue life
estimates and inspection planning” Offshore Technology Report 2001/056.
Health and Safety Executive (2012). “Further information on ageing and life extension”
http://www.hse.gov.uk/offshore/ageing/background.htm.
Jensen, Jakob Laigaard (1990). “Full-Scale Measurements of Offshore Platforms” Fracture and Dynamics,
Nr. 17, Bind. R9002.
 7

Pedersen, E.B., Jørgensen , D. et al. (2019). “True Fatigue Life Calculation Using Digital Twin Concept
and Operational Modal Analysis” ISOPE 2019.
Schaumann, P and Böker, C (2007). “Ermüdungsbeanspruchung aus Seegang bei aufgelösten Offshore-
Tragstrukturen” Stahlbau 76, Heft 9.