ASTRIIS develops a platform for offshore asset management

Asset management of offshore infrastructures, such as steel platforms that support a power generator to produce electricity from wind, are subjected to many degradation mechanisms. Direct exposition to adverse environmental conditions, including waves, winds, and humidity, do constitutes a serious threat to the conservation and stability of those infrastructures.

It is therefore important to predict the structural behaviour of these systems to prevent any catastrophic event. Prevention of infrastructure degradation is a mandatory action in any offshore industries. In the first place, accessing these infrastructures is difficult in most cases, and, secondly, any maintenance or reparation action at sea tend to be complex and consume an important number of resources.

ASTRIIS, under the leadership of Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade (ISQ) and in cooperation with Sensorlink (Norway), developed a test system to remotely collect relevant data from these types of offshore assets. Adding to the data collected by floating buoys, the new data obtained with the new ASTRIIS sensors continuously monitors key indicators that allow to assess the condition of the steel in any offshore infrastructure.

The ASTRIIS team, led by ISQ, installed a series of sensors in an offshore steel platform to measure seawater temperature and steel thickness. The system was remotely accessed by the Asset Management Platform and makes accessible the collected data. The system allows the infrastructure managers to monitor the evolution of the corrosion rate of the steel.

The information generated can thus be used to analyse the evolution of steel degradation mechanisms supporting the asset manager in key decisions concerning the opex and capex of the offshore infrastructure.

Stay tuned to the ASTRIIS website and LinkedIn for further developments on this and other ongoing project activities.