A Real Time Fatigue Monitoring Platform for Flexible Risers

Fatigue life of flexible risers is a critical design factor in offshore riser system design. To estimate the fatigue damage, global and local analyses are performed inhouse with inputs from operators. Metocean data, riser properties, vessel or platform RAO data are typical inputs for the fatigue analysis. In addition to the conservatism inherited in the product design methodology and API safety factor 10 for fatigue estimation, the input data may also contain some additional conservatism compared to actual operational conditions as these were estimated/projected from limited time-span of observations or predicted purely from numerical modelling. In combination, these inheriated conservatism permits the feasibility of service life extension of the flexible riser systems. Many platforms or vessels already have real time monitoring of motions in multiple degrees of freedom and wave/current data. Furthermore, pipe internal operating conditions like pressure and temperature are usually recorded onboard. Compared to the typical input data/assumptions made in predictive analysis, these records are more precisely and directly related to the actual fatigue damage accumulation. With real time data, a more accurate estimation on fatigue performance of riser can be achieved, which could enable the service life extension without compromising the design safety factors. A special software tool has been developed to calculate the real time fatigue damage of flexible tensile wires. The software is based on product design tools which are calibrated and independently validated with over 30 years installed operational experience. Developed in Python, the software utilizes an OrcaFlex API and a local analysis algorithm in the background. The software can be customized towards different platforms and pipe systems, as well as input data types. Depending on clients’ needs, multiple fatigue hot spots like top end fitting, bend stiffener region or touch down zone can be monitored at the same time. Other parameters like riser real time extreme response or statistical results can also be checked in the software. This paper summarizes the development of the pipe monitoring system. It is believed that with real time inputs, the software can better assist clients to monitor the pipe fatigue performance and other related riser responses.