What Our Civil Engineers are up to?

LOC Consultant Civil Engineers Wei-Yang Tan and George Savvopoulos performed a study as part of a joint industry initiative, on the technologies that can potentially be utilised in the maintenance of floating offshore windfarms. The study looked at the engineering and operational aspects of five shortlisted technologies currently under development, in liaison with the developers. The shortlisted technologies included heavy lift crane vessels, lighter vessel-mounted alternatives as well as tower-top crane solutions. The strengths and weaknesses of each were assessed in line with servicing different types of floating wind turbine generators’ foundations. The outcome of the study was presented to the members of the joint industry initiative.

At the same time Wei-Yang and George continued providing support to ongoing FOD cases. George performed a desktop study on the utilisation of a berth in the months following an incident. The study considered the vessel sizes and call frequency at the berth, in comparison with the use of the same berth in the past 5 years. Calling patterns before and after the incident were derived, and basic comparison figures were given on an annual and 1st quarter basis, to be available in the assessment for a loss of use claim. Wei-Yang has been providing FOD support in other regions, including Asia Pacific, since the end of last year where he also presented on Investigating Fixed Object Damage at the IG P&I Asia Correspondents Seminar in Singapore. He has also recently participated in working groups at Wind Europe on Port Infrastructure Requirements and at PIANC, the World Association for Waterbourne Transport Infrastructure, for Accidental Impacts from Ships on Fixed Structures.