The Optimization Era – 3 innovations you want to know about…because ultimately technology will save the day

Technip Canada Ltd

Flexible risers and umbilicals are an essential component in the subsea oil and gas industry. The design of these flexibles is a balancing act of finding a solution that meets several objectives by tweaking multiple variables. Until recently, this process was done manually by relying on the experience of the engineering analyst and knowledge gained from past configurations. The time constraints of this manual process meant that configurations were developed to a working solution with little time left for optimizing.

“I knew there had to be a better way,” says Fred Turner, team lead of the dynamic analysis department at Technip Canada in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Fred developed the framework for the software that would utilize randomness to optimize riser configurations with multiple variables and objectives. With Anskey Miranda, dynamic analysis engineer, they developed the software for which they were selected for the prestigious Jacques Franquelin award, a global award given across Technip every year.

The software, Early Riser, has been successfully used in multiple projects both locally as well as across other Technip offices. The move from a manual approach has resulted in Technip being able to offer clients optimized solutions at a fraction of the time and cost of their competitors. Fred and Anskey say that the methodology in Early Riser could be used for any complex process that involves multiple variables and multiple objectives, and is not limited to flexibles.

Check them out www.technip.com.

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