As digital transformation continues apace throughout the maritime, oil & gas, and renewables industries, digital twins are becoming more commonplace. The Norway-headquartered company Kongsberg Digital has developed the concept further, leveraging its high-fidelity simulator training technology with detailed, physically accurate, and integrated models to verify and optimise processes before a project or operation — which could be anything from a complex offshore installation to the design of a new vessel.
Because Kongsberg Digital’s digital twin models are exact virtual copies of real-life assets, they react the same way in the digital world as the assets would behave in reality. This means they can provide dependable data on what will happen when processes execute in the real world.
Currently, the phrase “digital twin” covers a whole area of cutting-edge technology, from fully connected, cloud-based solutions to more specialised models focused on specific types of operation. The idea is to create a model that makes it possible to peer into the future, to check out what will happen during an operation weeks and months in advance — and, in the case of fully connected solutions, even just a few minutes in the future during an actual operation.
Offshore oil and gas contractor Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) was an early adopter of the digital twin concept for vessel operations. Kongsberg Digital supplied the firm with advanced, customised simulation solutions. The firm has successfully used the technology in its Simulation Centre to support many unique and complex heavy-lift projects.
The Heerema Simulation Centre is a sophisticated resource based on an extensive Kongsberg simulator installation. Heerema has labelled Kongsberg Digital’s digital twins as a “Force Multiplier” for offshore operations. By applying Kongsberg Digital simulators to explore and test challenging and critical installations in the lab before going offshore to start the project, Heerema can reduce risk and simultaneously improve safety and efficiency because its workforce has a clear picture in advance of what will actually happen during the project.
Heerema’s Kongsberg Digital simulators include a comprehensive DNV-certified K-Sim® Offshore simulator facility, including two offshore crane operator domes, winch operation stations, and a full mission bridge with extensive DP simulation capability reflecting Heerema fleet capabilities. Using the K-Sim Offshore simulator technology as a platform, Kongsberg and Heerema have developed detailed models of the Heerema deep-water construction vessels Sleipnir, Thialf, Balder, and Aegir in addition to several support assets and vessels. These models have not only been implemented to provide lifelike operator training but are also highly accurate physical representations of Heerema’s fleet that react exactly the way the vessels would in real life. The models have also been improved over time by feeding data back from live operations to adjust and verify the simulator models. The fidelity of the models ensures that Heerema can trial any planned operation in its simulators and find out precisely what will happen at sea under whatever conditions are imposed.
The key benefits arising from the deployment of Kongsberg Digital simulators are self-evident,” notes Dave Woessner, Team Lead for Simulation and Visual Design at Heerema. “By adopting this methodology, Heerema can subject new and innovative concepts to rigorous virtual pre-testing before committing to the expense and logistical issues involved in turning such concepts into reality.” The simulators also enable concepts to be safely developed away from harsh offshore environments, where unpredictable weather patterns can seriously compromise operations.
“By the same token, the simulators enable comprehensive training programmes to be pursued, a crucial preparatory step when evaluating complicated project plans. Kongsberg Digital’s digital twins also allow Heerema to run through failure cases and create mitigating actions, thereby minimising the risk of unexpected issues arising. This, in turn, improves execution predictability and timing. The logical outcome of these stringent, pre-emptive, simulated scenarios is that operational efficiency becomes increasingly enhanced, leading to substantially reduced overall project costs.”
With high confidence in the accuracy of the results at the simulator centre, Heerema optimises complex operations before their ships leave port. They can try different approaches in different weather and sea states to ensure they are ready for whatever conditions they encounter. And when it comes to actually doing the job for real, their experience is always very close to the data generated by the digital twin. So far, Heerema has used the digital twin approach to verify diverse and highly complex projects, for instance, establishing installation aids, tugger position, and clearance for a flare installation on the Culzean gas field.
“Heerema has been heavily involved in the Culzean gas field project,” Wossner confirms. “Our client Maersk Oil North Sea UK Limited awarded us the Engineering, Procurement and Construction contracts for the central processing facilities platform, the utility and living quarter platform, the wellhead platform jacket, the wellhead access deck and access ways. While a digital twin of the Maersk Highlander jack-up drilling rig helped crews anticipate any problems that might potentially arise in the drilling of wells, Kongsberg Digital’s simulators assisted us in planning the fabrication, assembly and installation of the grillage and sea fastening for the jackets and piles, so that every stage of each process could be carried out with pinpoint accuracy.”
Kongsberg Digital’s digital twin technology paid ample dividends recently in the pre-trialling stages of a project intended to demonstrate the effectiveness of Heerema’s revolutionary QUAD lifting concept. The theory behind this methodology was that four cranes could be deployed simultaneously in parallel to enable topside structures to be built onshore as a complete item during commissioning, thereby saving considerable amounts in terms of man-hours and project costs.
The Kongsberg Digital simulators in the Heerema Simulation Centre were duly set to work, initially to assess the feasibility of the QUAD lifting procedure before being tasked to evaluate its practical worth through subsequent simulation testing. The exhaustive nature of the tests covered every aspect of the projected operation, from rehearsing communication protocols to acknowledging that human intervention could impact mission outcomes and building failure cases into the program to equip trainees with as wide a range of scenarios as possible.
The first real-life QUAD lifting trial occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in October 2018 and proved resoundingly successful. The procedure required the Heerema semi-submersible crane vessels Balder and Thialf to carry out a trial in dynamic positioning mode, and the operation went off without a hitch. Plans are now afoot to stage what Heerema calls “the ultimate QUAD lift”, with a combined lifting capacity of 34,000 tons when the firm’s Sleipnir semi-submersible crane vessel – the largest ever constructed – becomes fully operational.
“Having proved the worth of the QUAD lifting concept, with its DNV-certified technology, we’re in at the birth of an innovative, hyper-efficient, cost-effective and flexible way of working which could transform the way engineering, procurement and construction practices are approached,” observes Heerema Chief Executive Koos-Jan van Brouwershaven. “It effectively opens up a whole new array of possibilities from the commissioning and design phases of jackets and topsides onwards, obviously leading to a situation whereby these structures can routinely be installed on all types of foundation.”
Other Heerema projects where Kongsberg Digital’s digital twin has delivered enhancements include a FEED study for installing a 1,000-ton 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, Heerema used the system to test the set-down of several modules, enabling them to define the sequence and test concepts with local conditions, among other factors.
The system is also used to test unique applications thoroughly, such as a new backloading project that has never been carried out before. With no data available from real-life operations, Heerema received accurate verification of all aspects of the job, from concept design of the cones and receptor, and improved workability within the design concept, to weather limitations and alignment of engineers and operators. The diversity of these projects is possible because Heerema has in-house capabilities to create its own highly accurate physical models for the Kongsberg simulators and digital twins.
“Our in-house Simulation Centre can adapt a variety of 3D models, such as the jackets and topsides for the Culzean gas field project, to our clients’ real component characteristics,” says Wossner. “Three-dimensional drawings are produced by our engineering department and uploaded to the Simulation Centre system, after which offshore crews can perform a dry run of a given operation, cooperating with the client and our project team.”
“The strikingly effective realism of our simulation technology literally demonstrates what is achievable within any offshore project,” adds Tone Merete Hansen, Senior Vice President, Kongsberg Digital. “Utilising our digital twin concept speeds the entire process, from component fabrication to punctual onsite delivery. It also ensures that developers, engineers, offshore crews and stakeholders are mutually well informed, right from the outset; and for us, in turn, addressing their varied concerns drives consistent innovation for Kongsberg Digital.”
Heerema’s varied use of Kongsberg technology for project verification shows that you can implement real safety and efficiency improvements when you have highly accurate models acting as digital twins of real-life assets. Kongsberg consistently develops the digital twin concept, and in 2019, more innovations will be designed to support customers in the verification and optimisation process for diverse, challenging projects in disparate sectors.
