January 1993 – April 1994 (1 year 4 months) | London, United Kingdom

Employer | MCS International

During this period with MCS International, projects included finite element modelling techniques of flexible and rigid riser technology particularly in the design of Offshore Loading Systems, (OLS), especially in the design of the 19-inch Retrievable Offshore Loading Facility, (ROLF). He was involved in the supervision of an extensive program of model tests carried out by the Danish Hydraulic Institute, (DHI), in Denmark, for ROLF. He also carried out the calibration of the analytical model to the experimental model. This work included preparing and documenting the design basis and design guidelines for the system.
This work is referred to in the OMAE publication [Sterndorff, M., O’Brien, P., (1995) “Numerical and Experimental Analysis of a Retrievable Offshore Loading Facility”].
Other modelling included the evaluation of stresses induced in 12 metre lengths of steel screw-jointed risers in the North Sea, and emergency disconnect analysis of flexible risers. Installed designs include, a 5-inch flexible riser with umbilical and gas injection piggyback, the redesign of a failed riser system in the Cohassat/Panuke field, a gas lift riser to piggyback an existing riser system. Clients during this period included Ampolex Ltd., Shell Expro, SIPM, BP Exploration, NOS, Amerada Hess, and Lasmo (Nova Scotia) Ltd.

Notable achievements would include:

  1. The design of the first 3×3 mooring system pattern for floating production systems which is now commonly used in the industry;
  2. The development of algorithms for the design of a flexible pipe cross-section with multiple layers which involved calculating the stress & strain distribution across non-homogenous layers;
  3. Writing the software ‘Autoflex’ to integrate Company commercialised software Flexcom-3D output with AutoCAD Release 12;
  4. Development of a program for the optimisation of buoyancy module design accounting for drag-to-weight ratios.

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