Offshore platforms and wind turbines used in Oil&Gas and Renewable Energy industry located in the marine environment are exposed to extreme conditions and subjected to severe fatigue loading. An offshore platform is a large structure used to extract oil and natural gas or can be used to convert electricity from offshore wind farms.
Offshore Oil&Gas and Wind Farm facilities are installed in corrosive environments, this deterioration effect is most common in the inter-tidal and splash zones. These areas are of higher susceptibility, despite being typically protected from corrosion by applying multi-layer epoxy-based and polyurethane, including the cathodic protection systems using galvanic anodes or impressed current cathodic protection and corrosion allowances thicker steel. These corrosion protection systems are essential to protect the steel structure in the harsh marine environment.
The structures are made with stainless steel, an iron-based alloy with a significant chromium content. It include important features such as formability and weldability, good corrosion resistance, widely used in others industries such as subsea pipes used for distribution of drinkable water and cooling purposes, desalination plant, port structures and others marine applications.
Due to extreme environment and aging conditions, damages, underwater structural components require periodic inspections consisting of GVI (General Visual Inspection) and other NDT (Non-Destructive Testing) methods. The inspections aim to monitor the integrity of load-bearing elements.
Underwater structures inspection can be carried out by means of small UROVs (Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles) or AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles).
The UROVs observation and inspection-class such as Blueye ROVs manufactured by the Blueye company can be employed for reducing costs and complexity of the inspect submerged structures tasks. Small Blueye X3 UROV is extensively used for GVI and CVI (Close Visual Inspection) in the Oil&Gas and Renewable Energy, cable and pipeline infrastructure, including coastal facilities.
Cover image: Blueye
Read more in the digital JP Mag – JPmag – May 2022
Paolo Mazzone
SubEng – HSE Adviser
