Study of vessel performance in extreme loading conditions for a new built offshore construction vessel during installation of flexible flowline

Master's thesis in Offshore TechnologyA new built vessel need to carry out extensive sea trials before being put in what could be considered as “normal operation”. This is done to make sure the capabilities of the vessel are known to the vessel’s crew, captain, client and other interested parties before any real operations takes place. Prior to the sea trials one may have some knowledge about how the vessel will behave. This is generally based on experience of ship designers, captain, as well as experience from somewhat similar vessels (e.g. sister ships), if available. Model tests are also important, and used to confirm various parameters. In addition preliminary hydrodynamic analyses can be of great advantage. This is the starting point for my master thesis in “Marine and Subsea Technology” at the University of Stavanger. The focus has been to carry out a study investigating vessel performance/capabilities and motion characteristics for mainly two extreme loading conditions for Solstad Offshore ASA’s new built, Offshore Subsea Construction Vessel (OSCV) To Be Named (TBN) “Normand Vision”. This ship is to be long term chartered by Ocean Installer AS. The study is based on an installation operation of a flexible flowline in the North Sea at 350 meters water depth. The motivation is to learn the vessel’s performance/capacities when working under different loading conditions and sea states based on available knowledge and data. To investigate this, a dynamic analysis was carried out with use of the popular hydrodynamic analysis software “OrcaFlex”, with help of Microsoft Excel for making of scripts and processing of results. A number of environmental parameters and data regarding the vessel and the flowline were used in order to get a somewhat precise analysis. Wave heights, directions and periods were determined and a suitable wave model was chosen. Relevant limits and criteria for various operational aspects were defined according to product data, standards/regulations, certification requirements and other relevant literature. The maximum/minimum values for the different parameters were of interest as these covers the whole range of outcomes one could expect. The results from the analysis showed to be quite OK for the smallest waves and head seas. The analysis also revealed that the larger waves and more unfavourable wave headings gave more divergent results and challenges for certain parameters. The results for the various parameters and sea states are outlined and discussed. The different parameters are presented with the limits that apply for the actual parameter. In addition some spot checking with some more recently defined loading conditions was carried out. Also some highlights especially with respect to roll motions, and landing of helicopters on monohull vessels were looked into

Label-free monitoring of diffusion in microfluidics

Label-free, real-time detection of concentration gradients is demonstrated in a microfluidic H-filter, using an integrated photonic crystal slab sensor to monitor sample refractive index with spatial resolution. The recorded diffusion profiles reveal root-mean-square diffusion lengths for non-fluorescing and non-absorbing molecules, both small (glucose, 180 Da) and large (bovine serum albumin, 67 kDa)

ARDENT - An Augmented Reality Framework for Education

Virtual Reality (VR) in education and medicine has been a widely researched area. Increase in motivation and learning gain is demonstrated to be directly related to introduction of VR applications. However, the necessity for expensive and bulky hardware limits the usability of VR. This problem can be partially solved by using Augmented Reality (AR), which is readily available in most modern smart devices. In later years the same kind of research has been increasing for AR, but to a lesser extent. This increase might be attributed to improved affordability and the rapid technological advances of smart devices. ARDENT is a framework for the standard development of an AR application and its swift deployment across diverse smart device platforms. The framework seeks to make it as effortless as possible for a user to deploy their models before a multitude of other users can see these models through their smart devices. Finally, this framework is showcased in a one-to-many teacher-student relationship for a seamless in-class AR experience

ARDENT - An Augmented Reality Framework for Education

Virtual Reality (VR) in education and medicine has been a widely researched area. Increase in motivation and learning gain is demonstrated to be directly related to introduction of VR applications. However, the necessity for expensive and bulky hardware limits the usability of VR. This problem can be partially solved by using Augmented Reality (AR), which is readily available in most modern smart devices. In later years the same kind of research has been increasing for AR, but to a lesser extent. This increase might be attributed to improved affordability and the rapid technological advances of smart devices. ARDENT is a framework for the standard development of an AR application and its swift deployment across diverse smart device platforms. The framework seeks to make it as effortless as possible for a user to deploy their models before a multitude of other users can see these models through their smart devices. Finally, this framework is showcased in a one-to-many teacher-student relationship for a seamless in-class AR experience

Sterile neutrinos in the Milky Way: Observational constraints

We consider the possibility of constraining decaying dark matter by looking out through the Milky Way halo. Specifically we use Chandra blank sky observations to constrain the parameter space of sterile neutrinos. We find that a broad band in parameter space is still open, leaving the sterile neutrino as an excellent dark matter candidate.Comment: Submitted to ApJL, 4 pages, 4 figure