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FMC Technologies: Evaluating Cumulative Damage in Subsea Oil and Gas Equipment with ANSYS Mechanical and Scripting
Technology Category
- Sensors - Gas Sensors
- Sensors - Utility Meters
Applicable Industries
- Equipment & Machinery
- Oil & Gas
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
Use Cases
- Structural Health Monitoring
The Challenge
FMC Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. was faced with the challenge of designing subsea oil and gas equipment that could withstand high pressure and high temperature domains. The equipment had to be qualified per ASME BPVC VIII, Division 3, which requires the cumulative damage on the equipment to be below 1. The increasing depth of oil extraction meant that the structural loading requirements for subsea components were increasing, but there were also space and weight constraints on these components. To reduce over-engineering and promote value engineering, engineers needed to visualize damage distribution in each component. However, ANSYS Structural, the technology they were using, did not have a method to plot damage. The challenge was to develop a customized method using ANSYS’ scripting capabilities.
About The Customer
FMC Technologies is a global market leader in subsea systems and a leading provider of technologies and services to the oil and gas industry. They help Exploration and Production customers overcome difficult challenges with onshore and offshore drilling, completion and production technologies and services to improve their returns. The company is known for its innovative solutions in the face of complex challenges, particularly in the design and manufacture of subsea oil and gas equipment. Their commitment to value engineering and reducing over-engineering is evident in their approach to problem-solving.
The Solution
FMC Technologies used ANSYS Mechanical or Workbench to determine loading conditions experienced by the product using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). They developed ANSYS Mechanical macros to evaluate cumulative damage as per ASME BPVC VIII Division 3, Article KD 232.1. ANSYS Parametric Design Language was used to customize the analysis to provide for damage visualization. The Macro code wrote an additional .RST file containing the elemental nodal value of ASME’s damage value for each node. The effects of the damage value on the components were evaluated. If any improvement in product performance was required, engineers made informed decisions based on the damage information in the .RST file. ANSYS post-processing tools were used to plot damage and identify areas in the design that did not satisfy ASME Sec. VIII D3 criteria.
Operational Impact
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