A
presentation by a team* led by ENI researchers at the 2014 Modelica
Association’s conference held last month in Lund, Sweden, demonstrated
how the free language for modeling complex systems was used to simulate
an offshore oil production facility. Although there are many software
tools for simulating oil and gas flow, there is currently no tool that
combines physical (engineering/fluid mechanics) with risk analysis. The
paper presents a ‘first step’ in the creation of a such a tool for the
specification, design and study of offshore oil facilities.
ENI used new
Modelica components to simulate single and two-phase flows in a typical
offshore plant and higher level tools for stochastic simulation of
costs and risk. The risk simulation uses Markov chains and statistical
indicators to ‘assess the performance and resilience of the system.’
The model
includes wells, two phase flow in jumpers, manifolds, risers and, on
the platform, separators, flares and tanks. Cost and risk simulation
used Scilab. The authors are now working to up-scale the approach and address ‘industrial scale’ designs. Download the full conference proceedings.
* From ENI, Eurobios, ENS Cachan and Saipem.
© Oil IT Journal - all rights reserved.