Seabed ploughing: modelling for infrastructure installation
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Dundee
Department Name: Civil Engineering
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Publications
Robinson S
(2016)
Development of low cost 3D soil surface scanning for physical modelling
Robinson S
(2017)
Improvement of seabed cable plough tow force prediction models
Robinson S
(2016)
Development of low cost 3D soil surface scanning for physical modelling
Robinson S
(2016)
Improving seabed cable plough performance for offshore renewable energy
| Description | The award has allowed the development of new improved analytical approaches for both cable and pipeline ploughing that has the potential to allow more accurate prediction of plough progress rates and stability of ploughs in granular materials. This has come through the development of new physical modelling infrastructure at both 1g and elevated g (geotechnical centrifuge testing) that has allowed efficient testing of ploughing analogues to deconvolute behaviour and the verification of existing scaling laws for 1g testing. This has shown that small scale 1g testing of ploughing models is appropriate if previously developed scaling laws are adopted which has not been previously verified. The main objective of the University of Dundee in this project was to develop high quality research testing infrastructure to generate high quality and detailed data sets for use by Durham University for their objective to develop a computational tool (i.e. software) to improve predictions of soil and machine behaviour in ploughing. This objective was met during this project and wider improvement of existing analytical models and insights into ploughing behaviour were developed through both physical and the computation tools developed. |
| Exploitation Route | The findings from this research can be taken forward by industry to allow more accurate prediction of ploughing progress rates and to estimate when at high speeds ploughs may start to become unstable. This will mainly be by specialist offshore installation contractors responsible for installing pipelines and cables. Accurate prediction of time for installation allows selection of the most appropriate and efficient plant and vessels, appropriate costing and tendering of jobs and helps to de-risk these very expensive operations. In the future this has the potential to influence new plough design and manufacture and fast prototyping of new models and designs. |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Construction,Energy |
| Description | ETP Energy Industry Doctorate Efficient offshore cable and pipeline installation through advanced numerical and physical modelling techniques |
| Amount | £74,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Energy Technology Partnership (ETP) |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2020 |
| End | 07/2023 |
| Description | Oceaneering Limited plough optimsation study |
| Amount | £78,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Oceaneering |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 07/2019 |
| End | 01/2020 |
| Title | Development of large centrifuge box and actuation system for large strain inflight simulations |
| Description | Development of a specialist large actuation centrifuge box for inflight testing of large strain events or ploughing in this case. Require new infrastructure development mainly in terms of an actuation system capable of at operating at 80 times earth gravity to pull objects through soil beds at appropriate stress levels. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Enabled award of EP/N009215/1 LOCORPS: Lowering the Costs of Railways using Preformed Systems with advanced inflght centrifuge testing of novel high speed railway embankment systems. |
| URL | https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/centrifuge-testing-to-verify-scaling-of-offshore-pipe... |
| Title | Development of low cost 3D soil surface scanning for physical modelling |
| Description | 3D scanning is becoming increasingly commonplace in everyday life, but its potential may be yet to be fully exploited in geotechnical research. Key barriers to its use include issues such as the high cost of the hardware required, the need for specialist or custom built software for processing the 3D scan data and challenges in visualising the final 3D scan. This development of a low cost soil surface scanning system that can create a 3D representation of a physical model's surface geometry accurate to within +/- 0.5 mm. The system is based around a low cost commercially available scanner which is easily deployable and provides rapid output in an integrated 3D model which can be easily visualised and interrogated. Measured physical model surface geometry can also be easily transferred into numerical modelling software to allow complex surface boundaries to be modelled. The scanner output allows detailed analysis of surface de-formations such as the measurement of features of interest, generation of cross-sections of physical models and the calculation of areas and soil volumes. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | None known but there was significant interest in this technique from other research groups when presented. Has been read 268 times on Researchgate since publication. |
| URL | https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303737848_Development_of_low_cost_3D_soil_surface_scanning_... |
| Title | A CPT approach to cable plough performance prediction based upon centrifuge model testing - Measured Data |
| Description | This dataset contains the measured data from the tests presented in the corresponding publication: 'Robinson, S., Brown, M., Matsui, H., Brennan, A., Augarde, C., Coombs, W. M., & Cortis, M. (2020). A CPT approach to cable plough performance prediction based upon centrifuge model testing. Canadian Geotechnical Journal. https://doi.org/10.1139/cgj-2020-0366'. The paper can also be accessed at: https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/a-cpt-approach-to-cable-plough-performance-prediction-based-upon- The attached spreadsheet contains the measured Horizontal Displacement, Vertical Displacement, Tow Force and Plough Depth from each of the centrifuge tests. The tests are fully described in the associated paper. Each test is presented in an individual tab in the spreadsheet, and all data shown is at model scale. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | none |
| URL | https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/a-cpt-approach-to-cable-plough-performance-prediction... |
| Description | Visiting Industrial Researcher from the Taisei Corporation, Japan |
| Organisation | Taisei Corporation |
| Country | Japan |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Provision of research equipment and advanced physical modelling techniques to simulate offshore cable plough performance in a laboratory environment. Training of visiting researcher in advanced modelling techniques |
| Collaborator Contribution | Financial support of visiting researcher |
| Impact | Creating of a data set looking at cable plough perfroamcne modelling suring centrifuge testing as well as a study (data) on how plough share geometry affects plough performance. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Cathie Associates, Newcastle: Invited presentation, with link to French and Belgium offices on "the advantages and disadvantages of physical modelling |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation on the benefits of physical modelling for supporting research and indsutrial projects. 15 practicing engineers attended or viewed online which sparked questions and discussion. This has also lled to further research collaboration and the recomendation of University of Dundee facilities to simulate real industrial problems. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | DeepOcean, Darlington: Invited lunch and learn speaker on Physical modelling of seabed ploughing for cable and pipeline installation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | DeepOcean, Darlington: Invited lunch and learn speaker on Physical modelling of seabed ploughing for cable and pipeline installation. Showing all staff involved in the company a summary of the research undertaken on cable and pipeline ploughing undertaken and the developments and improvements made in understanding plough behaviour and design. 40 Staff members attended. This sparked questions and dsicussion afterwards and the potential for related future research to be discussed in detail at alater date. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | ETH Zurich, Institut für Geotechnik, Invited colloquium speaker, Offshore plough modelling |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 10 Postgraduate students attended research talk on the physical modelling of offshore ploughs and methods of predictiong tow forces and advance rates and research that has been doen to improve these predictions. This sparked questions and discussion afterwards and some existting publications were requested after the event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Fugro Geoconsulting, Brussels Belgium: Invited presentation to design team on updates to offshore ploughing prediction models |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Fugro Geoconsulting, Brussels Belgium: Invited presentation to design team on updates to offshore ploughing prediction models. Updating international consultant on recent advances in pipeline and cable plough performance prediction models. Sparked discussion and questions and sharing of publications after the event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | ICONHIC2019, Greece: Invited Theme lecturer. Geohazards prevention and mitigation, The influence of offshore geohazards and soil conditions on infrastructure installation approaches. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Invited themed lecture given to industry and academic experts and insurers interested in offshore geohazards. The presentation generated questions and discussion and requestes for further information and publications. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://iconhic.com/2019/ |
| Description | IET's First Lego Dundee University leg |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | University of Dundee hosted a regional heat of the IET Lego Mindstorms international competition. The competition aims to encourage school pupils into science and engineering, by completing a range of competition tasks using programmable Lego robots built by the pupils. As a part of this event, a Civil Engineering stall was setup to provide activities for the pupils when they were not competing and over lunchtime. The aim of the stall was to: • Provide pupils with an understanding of what civil engineering is • Raise pupils interest in Civil Engineering in a fun and engaging way • Highlight the importance of Civil Engineering in fields such as renewable energy, infrastructure and earthquake resilience The display included Lego models of offshore wind turbines and seabed cable ploughs, posters of Civil Engineering topics and leaflets with further information on how to pursue engineering as a career path for those pupils interested. Practical activities were available for the students focussed on EPSRC funded projects at the University of Dundee: • Screw piles: Pupils were able to test Lego models of both straight shafted and screw piles embedded in sand and compare the differences in pullout force • Seabed ploughing: Pupils were able to watch interactive videos of the seabed ploughing process and interact with model Lego cable ploughs • Earthquake liquefaction: Students were able to design and make their own foundations for a Lego model house and compare how it coped with earthquakes using a miniature shaking table. 100 school pupils visited the stall during the day, with the majority of pupils undertaking all of the activities listed above. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://www.dundee.ac.uk/scienceengineering/news/2016/article/first-lego-league-takes-place-at-unive... |
| Description | UPC Barcelona, Geotechnical Seminar series: Invited presentation to the UPC Barcelona Geotechnics Research Group on Physical modelling of offshore ploughing operations. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | UPC Barcelona, Geotechnical Seminar series: Invited presentation to the UPC Barcelona Geotechnics Research Group on Physical modelling of offshore ploughing operations. Attended by a mixed audience of 30 people made up of senior academics, post graduate and undergraduate students. Sparked questions and discussion and identified as a potential are for future research collaboration with potential for numerical modelling. Request for paers after event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | University of Sheffield Colloqium series on Mechanics and Infrastructure research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 60 post graduate ad undergraduate students attended an invited presentation at the University of Sheffield Engineering School on Physical Modelling for Offshore Energy Infrastructure Deployment which sparked questions and discussion afterwards and raised awareness of the use of physcial modelling and interesting research areas for renewable energy research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |