@RISK Applications in Offshore

Geotechnical Engineering

Examples from Oil&Gas and Renewables

3 April 2014

Palisade Regional Risk Conference

Cathie Associates
Company Overview
Who are we?
The specialist geotechnical and geoscience offshore
consultancy
 40 offshore Geotechnical Engineers, Geophysicists and
Engineering Geologists
 One of the largest such specialist teams in the world
 Oil & gas historical base – now broadened to offshore
renewable industry and ports & harbours
 Worldwide projects
 Trusted by leading developers and contractors for our
expertise, responsiveness and integrity

Pushing boundaries, delivering solutions

What do we do? Deliver practical, safe, cost-effective engineering solutions

Pushing boundaries, delivering solutions

What do we do? Range of services

CONSTRUCTION

ENGINEERING
•Desk studies
•Preliminary site •Regulatory and
•Survey management financial support •Project management
evaluation
•Data interpretation / •Permitting •Pile installation
•Foundation integration
optioneering •Design verification analysis
•Geotechnical design and approval •Cable burial
•Pipeline and cable assessments
FEASIBILITY engineering •Jackup operations
APPROVAL

Pushing boundaries, delivering solutions

Who do we work for?
OIL & GAS MARINE RENEWABLES OTHER
MAJORS UTILITIES CABLES & PIPELINES

SMALLER OPERATORS

LNG Terminals
CONTRACTORS/CONSULTANTS PORTS & HARBOURS
DEVELOPERS

Pushing boundaries, delivering solutions

Global track record
Delivering tangible benefits

 Rigorous engineering – rapid

certification or approval
 Reduce geo-risk

 Adding financial value to our clients

 Helping win contracts
 Increasing project value by good
engineering, good decisions, and
managing risk

Pushing boundaries, delivering solutions

Risk & Reliability in
Geotechnical
Engineering
Why Risk & Reliability Engineering?

 Decision making under uncertainty

 Inherent in geotechnics qc [MPa]
0 20 40 60 80 100
0 Best
estimate
Upper bound
5

10

Depth [m]
15

20

Lower
25 bound

30

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Why Risk & Reliability Engineering?

 Decision making under uncertainty

 Select the best possible development/construction
strategy
10
Total Geotechnical Cost, % of

6
CAPEX

Optimum spend
4

0
0 2 4 6 8 10
Front-end site investigation Spend, % of CAPEX
Evans (2010)

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Why Risk & Reliability Engineering?

 Decision making under uncertainty

 Different types of uncertainty

Statistical
Spatial variation
variability

Model
uncertainty

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Why Risk & Reliability Engineering?

 @RISK
 Translate engineering models into
probabilistic tools
 Quantitative risk analysis becomes
a requirement
 Good communication with
stakeholders
 Easy to train staff

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Application 1
Pile Foundation
engineering
Piled foundations - Overview

 Very common foundation type

 Transfer loads to deeper, more competent layers
 Hammered into the soil
 Between 1.5m and 7.0m diameter
 Determination of pile length
 Prevent collapse
 Prevent excessive displacements
 Mixture of science and empiricism

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Piled foundations – Current design practice

 Oil & Gas – API Main Text Design method

 Classify soil based on interpreted in-situ test
 Calculate axial resistance
 Not a predictive method
 Oil & Gas – CPT based methods
 Directly use results of most common
geotechnical test
 Predictive method
 Scatter on predicted vs measured values
 Offshore wind?
 Usually deterministic design: 𝑹 ≥ 𝑺

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Piled foundations – Probabilistic design

 Loads – Extreme value distribution

 Translate return periods into probabilities
 Accounts for statistical variations of wind, wave
and currents
 Compare to deterministic loads
4.0E-04
3.5E-04
Probability density

Extreme

Characteristic load

DNV/API LRFD
3.0E-04 value

GL Wind
2.5E-04 distribution
2.0E-04
1.5E-04
1.0E-04
5.0E-05
0.0E+00
-5,000 0 5,000 10,000 15,000
Annual extreme tension load (tension > 0) [kN]

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Piled foundations – Probabilistic design
qc [MPa]
0 20 40 60 80 100
 Resistance distribution 0
Best estimate

 Account for soil variability Upper bound

5
based on in-situ tests
 PERT distributions in @RISK
10
 VBA function: cone
resistance to axial pile

Depth [m]
resistance 15

20

Lower bound
25

Dr = 15%

30

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Piled foundations – Probabilistic design

 Uncertainty on design method

 Database of tests compared against predictions
 Lognormal distributions in @RISK
 Calculated resistance multiplied by method uncertainty multiplier

Table 2: Statistical parameters for Qc/Qm (Lehane et al., 2005)

Coefficient of Variation No. of piles
Method Arithmetic mean, μ
(CoV)
Driven open- API Main Text 0.75 0.68
ended piles in
17
compression ICP-05 0.89 0.28
(OEC)
Driven open- API Main Text 0.72 0.76
ended piles in 15
ICP-05 0.90 0.27
tension (OET)
Entire database API Main Text 0.81 0.67
74
ICP-05 0.95 0.30

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 Sample qc distribution
in each layer

Calculate pile
capacity according to
ICP-05 using the Repeat N times
sampled qc values with @RISK

Sample Qc/Qm
distribution and apply
on calculated pile
capacity value

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Piled foundations – Probabilistic design results
6.E-05

5.E-05
Probability density [1/kN]

4.E-05

3.E-05

2.E-05

1.E-05

0.E+00
0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000
Tension capacity, R [kN]

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Piled foundations – Probabilistic design

 Combining load and resistance

4.E-04

4.E-04

3.E-04
Probability density [-]

Pile penetration = 21m

3.E-04 Pile penetration = 25m

2.E-04 Pile penetration = 29m

2.E-04 Pile penetration = 33m

1.E-04

5.E-05

0.E+00
-5000 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000
R, S [kN]

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Piled foundations – Probabilistic design

 Probabilistic determination of required length

Probability of failure, pf [-]
1.0E-10 1.0E-08 1.0E-06 1.0E-04 1.0E-02
0

Target for manned structures

structures
Target for unmanned
DNV target
5
Pile penetration [m]

10

15

20

25

30

35

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Piled foundations – Conclusions

 Deterministic design practice can lead to

overconservative design
 Probabilistic design becomes possible
 High quality site data
 Database of predicted vs measured foundation
capacity
 Implementation of governing equations for
Monte Carlo analysis with @RISK
 Valuable exercise

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Application 2
Suction caisson
installation
Deepwater field development
 Subsea structures
 SURF
 FPU’s
Deepwater field development

 West-African fields
 Water depth >1000m
 Suction caissons for:
 Anchoring of floating structures
 Foundation of seabed structures

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Deepwater field development

 Installation animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06ZBAXYAsxE

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Suction caisson underpressure
penetration
Suction caisson underpressure penetration

 Installation process
 Lowering to seabed
 Self-weight penetration
 Underpressure penetration

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Suction caisson underpressure penetration

 Installation risks
 Early refusal
 Soil plug failure
 Prediction of underpressures
 Simple analytical model
 Uncertainty on soil-structure
interaction
 Usually, upper bounds are taken
 Measurement in the field
 Is unexpected behaviour really
unexpected?
Colliat & Colliard, 2010

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Suction caisson underpressure penetration
qnet [MPa]
 Probabilistic calculations 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
0
 Uncertainty on soil parameters
 Complex VBA function for required 5

Depth below mudline [m]

underpressure calculation
 @RISK model with distributions for 10
unknown parameters
 Define 90% confidence intervals for 15
required underpressure

20

25
LE BE HE

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Suction caisson underpressure penetration
Applied underpressure, Δu [kPa]
 Comparison to field results 0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225
0
 Fairly large scatter in field results
2
 Mostly within 90% confidence
4
interval

Depth below mudline [m]

6
0.05 percentile
8
0.5 percentile
10
0.95 percentile
12

14

16

18

20

22

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Suction caissons - conclusions

 Probabilistic penetration
calculations
 Better decision-making than with
deterministic methods
 Improve knowledge under the
given uncertainties
 Recommended for future use

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Application 3
Foundation verification
strategies
Foundation verification

 Are foundation dimensions adequate?

 Testing during construction phase
 Feedback to design team
 Expensive tests
 Specialist equipment
 Time on expensive installation vessels
(>€200,000/day)
 Trade-off between information and cost

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Foundation verification

 What level of testing is advised for a platform

with 4 piles?
 No testing
 1, 2 or 4 piles
 Alternative: Instrument the follower (reusable pile
section)
 Potential to be much more effective
 Uncertainty on acceptance

 Government acceptance can be a major

source of uncertainty
 Rejection of test plan leads to large additional
cost

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 25.0% 0.0%
Yes
0 -€ 100,000.00
FALSE Gov ernment acceptance
1 pile
-€ 100,000.00 -€ 730,000.00
75.0% 0.0%
No
-€ 840,000.00 -€ 940,000.00
TRUE Number of piles
Yes
0 -€ 268,125.00
75.0% 0.0%
Yes
0 -€ 200,000.00
FALSE Gov ernment acceptance
2 piles
-€ 200,000.00 -€ 340,000.00
25.0% 0.0%
No
-€ 560,000.00 -€ 760,000.00
99.0% 0.0%
Yes
0 -€ 400,000.00
FALSE Gov ernment acceptance
4 piles
-€ 400,000.00 -€ 402,150.00
1.0% 0.0%
No
-€ 215,000.00 -€ 615,000.00
50.0% 50.0%
Yes
0 -€ 150,000.00
TRUE Gov ernment acceptance
Instrument follower
-€ 150,000.00 -€ 268,125.00
25.0% 12.5%
One verification test
-€ 135,000.00 -€ 285,000.00
50.0% Verification tests
No
0 -€ 386,250.00
75.0% 37.5%
Two verification tests
-€ 270,000.00 -€ 420,000.00
Test [Y/N]
Verification testing
-€ 268,125.00
1.0% 0.0%
Yes
0 0
FALSE Gov ernment acceptance
No
0 -€ 1,108,800.00
99.0% 0.0%
No
-€ 1,120,000.00 -1120000
 Foundation verification - Recommendations

 Trying the instrumented follower looks like the

best choice
 Otherwise, testing 2 piles is advised
 Indicative prices, also variable (more refined
modelling possible)
TRUE Number of piles
Yes
0 -€ 268,125.00
50.0% 50.0%
Yes
0 -€ 150,000.00
TRUE Gov ernment acceptance
Instrument follower
-€ 150,000.00 -€ 268,125.00
25.0% 12.5%
One verification test
-€ 135,000.00 -€ 285,000.00
50.0% Verification tests
No
0 -€ 386,250.00
75.0% 37.5%
Two verification tests
-€ 270,000.00 -€ 420,000.00
Test [Y/N]
Verification testing
-€ 268,125.00

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Q&A

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