Impact of vessel logistics on floating wind farm availability

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a study of the impact of the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) vessel logistics over the power availability of an Offshore Wind Farm. In particular, the vessel size and availability are considered. The study is performed with a life-span simulator, based on historical metocean data, walk-to-walk characterization based on a frequency domain hydrodynamic modelling of multibody systems, wind farm fault simulator (based on a catalogue of more than 1800 faults) and an algorithm to reproduce the O&M intelligence (i.e. sea transportation, workability, among others). The frequency domain model is applied on an hourly basis considering the specific significant wave height, peak period, peak enhancement factor, mean heading, directional spreading, and a wave-by-wave strategy is used to find if personnel transfer and workability criteria are met. The WindFloat Atlantic wind farm, located off the coast of Viana do Castello (Portugal), was chosen together with the TRL+ project semi-submersible platform and the 10MW turbine as a reference case. Different vessel logistics options are compared, including full vessel availability and several options of waiting times. The power availability changes among the different cases of study could be compared with the cost changes, optimizing the LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy) of the wind farm. The presented study is a valuable example of the potential of the proposed O&M simulation model as an optimization tool.Raúl Guanche also acknowledges financial support from the Ramon y Cajal Program (RYC-2017-23260) of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities

Spare part demand forecasting for consumer goods using installed base information

When stopping production, the manufacturer has to decide on the lot size in the final production run to cover spare part demand during the end-of-life phase. This decision can be supported by forecasting how much demand is expected in the future. Forecasts can be obtained from the installed base of the product, that is, the number of products still in use. This type of information is relatively easily available in case of B2B maintenance contracts, but it is more complicated in B2C spare parts supply management. Consumer decisions on whether or not to repair a malfunctioning product depend on the specific product and spare part. Further, consumers may differ in their decisions, for example, for products with fast innovations and changing social trends. Consumer behavior can be accounted for by using appropriate types of installed base, for example, lifetime installed base for essential spare parts of expensive products with long lifecycle, and warranty installed base for products with short lifecycle. This paper proposes a set of installed base concepts with associated simple empirical forecasting methodologies that can be applied in practice for B2C spare parts supply management during the end-of-life phase of consumer products. The methodology is illustrated by case studies for eighteen spare parts of six products from a consumer electronics company. The research hypotheses on which installed base type performs best under which conditions are supported in the majority of cases, and forecasts obtained from installed base are substantially better than simple black box forecasts. Incorporating past sales via installed base therefore supports final production decisions to cover future consumer demand for spare parts

Exploring How Usage-Focused Business Models Enable Circular Economy through Digital Technologies

Recent studies advocate that digital technologies are key enabling factors for the introduction of servitized business models. At the same time, these technologies support the implementation of the circular economy (CE) paradigm into businesses. Despite this general agreement, the literature still overlooks how digital technologies enable such a CE transition. To fill the gap, this paper develops a conceptual framework, based on the literature and a case study of a company implementing a usage-focused servitized business model in the household appliance industry. This study focuses on the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, and analytics, and identifies eight specific functionalities enabled by such technologies (improving product design, attracting target customers, monitoring and tracking product activity, providing technical support, providing preventive and predictive maintenance, optimizing the product usage, upgrading the product, enhancing renovation and end-of-life activities). By investigating how these functionalities affect three CE value drivers (increasing resource efficiency, extending lifespan, and closing the loop), the conceptual framework developed in this paper advances knowledge about the role of digital technologies as an enabler of the CE within usage-focused business models. Finally, this study shows how digital technologies help overcome the drawback of usage-focused business models for the adoption of CE pointed out by previous literatur

Digitalization of Offshore Wind Farm Systems

Master's thesis in Offshore Technology: Industrial asset managementThis thesis investigates how new digital technologies and digitalization can help further evolve the offshore wind industry using the Industry 4.0 concept as a basis and explores how technologies within this concept can contribute to an offshore wind farm that overcomes some of these challenges. The study focuses on an offshore wind farm from a systems perspective, including respective modules, and where the Industry 4.0 technologies can be applied. Following this is the establishment of a systematic digitalization framework and a proposal on how to cope with increased volumes of data, connectivity, and complexity.publishedVersio

Installed base information utilisation in industrial service development and operations

This paper describes a systematic literature review conducted to determine how installed base information (IBI) is utilised in developing and operating industrial services. We found that the reviewed literature considers IBI useful and relevant for industrial service operations, and that it is mainly used to improve service quality and efficiency. However, it is evident that there is a shortage of empirical studies and further investigations that show concrete applications of IBI in different service activities. The existing research concentrates on particular contexts, such as preventive maintenance and asset management. The asset owner perspective is emphasised in the literature, but the use of IBI for service offerings, service contracts and service sales is rarely discussed. The literature indicates that many companies lack a holistic approach to IBI management, in general, and utilisation as a part of it. It is not uncommon for companies to build large databases, but fail to do accurate analyses based on the collected data.Peer reviewe

Study of space shuttle environmental control and life support problems

Four problem areas were treated: (1) cargo module environmental control and life support systems; (2) space shuttle/space station interfaces; (3) thermal control considerations for payloads; and (4) feasibility of improving system reusability

Floating offshore wind farms : demand planning & logistical challenges of electricity generation

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2009.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 46).Floating offshore wind farms are likely to become the next paradigm in electricity generation from wind energy mainly because of the near constant high wind speeds in an offshore environment as opposed to the erratic wind speeds in their onshore counterparts. By using floaters adapted from oilrigs, floating offshore wind farms can be operated with larger wind turbines for increased power generation. In the United States, floating offshore wind farms located off the coast of New England would be near large load centers and accessible to transmission load lines with low capacity utilization. Apart from the technological challenges of building floating offshore wind farms stemming from the developmental stage of the floater technology, there are three major logistical challenges prospective operators would likely encounter in harvesting electricity. The first challenge is to understand the interaction between distances from shore to locate a wind farm given increasing wind speeds. The second challenge is to understand the marginal impact of distance from shore on revenue generated from electricity sales from a floating offshore wind farm. And finally the third challenge is to determine inventory policy for wind turbine components in operating a floating offshore wind farm given its more complex operation and maintenance schedule. To address these challenges, this study examines a hypothetical 100 units of 5MW wind turbines to understand the economics of locating a floating offshore wind farm.(cont.) It is important to know the intersection between the increase in revenue generated with distance from shore and increase in operation & maintenance costs of a floating offshore wind farm. Because there is currently no floating offshore wind farm at the time of this writing, estimated failure rate data was used to study demand patterns for offshore wind turbine components. Three of maintenance strategies were examined. The results obtained from this work will serve as a blue print for prospective operators of floating offshore wind farms in logistics planning and inventory management of wind turbine components for electricity generation.by Christopher Dozie Nnadili.M.Eng.in Logistic