Weather Window Analysis in Operations and Maintenance Policies for Offshore Floating Multi-Purpose Platforms

In an emerging “blue economy,” the use of large multipurpose floating platforms in the open ocean is being considered. Such platforms could possibly support a diversified range of commercial activities including energy generation, aquaculture, seabed mining, transport, tourism, and sea-based laboratories. A Markov Decision Process (MDP) framework is proposed to deal with operations and maintenance issues that are inevitable; challenges arise from the complex stochastic weather conditions that need to be accounted for. Using data as well as contrasting synthetic simulations of relevant weather variables, we demonstrate the robustness/versatility of the MDP model. Two case studies-one involving constant and another involving time-dependent downtime costs-are conducted to demonstrate how the proposed MDP framework incorporates weather patterns from available data and can offer optimal policies for distinct metocean conditions (i.e., temporal variations in the weather). A realistic example that illustrates the implementation of the proposed framework for multiple O&M issues involving salmon net pens and wave energy converters demonstrates how our optimal policies can minimize O&M costs and maximize crew safety almost as if the true future were known for scheduling.