Towards a Digital Twin Supporting Risk Based Decision Making for Offshore Installations

Abstract

Risk Assessments are used to assess the impact of alternativedesigns, changes during operations, and compliance of offshore installations against tolerabilitycriteria. Typically, asset information is used to develop a mathematical model; this can beupdated to reflect changes during the facility's lifecycle. This paper examines how the use ofcloud-based technology to develop a Digital Twin improves efficiency. Allowing projectstakeholders full access to the QRA model also enables greater understanding of hazards. Digital technology pervades all areas of business and societyand offers great advantages to safety engineering relative to traditional approaches. This paperdemonstrates how cloud basedtools canturn the traditional static QRA process into a living QRA which can be updated throughout aninstallation's lifecycle by creating a digital twin. This type of living QRA allows projectstakeholders to change key parameters and assess the effect of these changes on risk levels. Inaddition, the results can be interrogated down to fundamental levels using a Microsoft Power BIdashboard. The output of QRAs are usually static reports providing anoverview of the detailed work undertaken and a high-level summary of the results which arecompared with tolerability criteria or to demonstrate ALARP. This paper demonstrates howcustomised internet browser tools utilising 2D and 3D graphics may be built on top of the QRA toextract more detail than previously possible and communicate risks in a flexible and interactiveway. It also shows how consistent data management can form a basis for innovating beyond thetraditional approach. This allows a wider range of stakeholders to determine risk drivers, isolatesingle accident scenarios and filter results to a greater depth than is possible through a paperreport and allow a greater understanding of their hazards. Digitalisation is an increasingly ‘hot topic’ in the process industry. Making use of new technologies to provide greater insights can aid in better and more timelyhazard management whilst reducing costs to stakeholders. Examples of innovations which promote better assessment are provided.

Data Management in Digital Twins for the Oil and Gas Industry: beyond the OSDU Data Platform

“…The existence of data silos and the difficulty of handling multiple, heterogeneous data sources, formats, and types of data are often mentioned as a major difficulty. There are works reporting DTs in the O&G domain propose limited scope solutions for data management problems such as data cleaning [Sha and Zeadally 2015;Andia and Israel 2018], data heterogeneity and integration [Murray et al 2019;Al-Ismael et al 2020;Dao et al 2014;Brackel et al 2018;Jirkovskỳ et al 2016] or interoperability .…”