Product category:
Infrastructure and CAD Software
News Release from: Bentley Systems | Subject: Tyonek Test Separator
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial
Team on 15 May 2006
VECO Honored With BE Award
Tyonek Test Separator won VECO a BE Award in the category "Plant: Technology for an oil platform equipment retrofit in Alaska's North Cook Inlet field.
VECO, a leading provider of project services to the energy, resource, and process industries, used 3D modeling and laser scanning technology to save hundreds of thousands of dollars on an oil platform equipment retrofit in Alaska's North Cook Inlet field The project - Tyonek Test Separator - won VECO a BE Award in the category 'Plant: Technology for Retrofit'
This article was originally published on Buildingtalk on 9 Nov 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Geospatial Water Management System
Mexico's third largest city selects WaterGEMS, from Bentley's Haestad Methods product line, to manage its water distribution system.
Water Modeling Software Selected for Baghdad
Bentley's Water Modeling Software, WaterGEMS, has been selected to help improve water quality for millions of residents of Baghdad.
The BE Awards of Excellence, which are selected by an independent jury of industry experts and presented at an evening ceremony during the annual BE Conference, honor the extraordinary work of Bentley users improving the world's infrastructure.
These projects set benchmarks for their industries, and showcase the imagination and technical mastery of the organizations that created them.
This year's BE Awards of Excellence ceremony takes place May 22 in Charlotte, N.C.
Further reading
Bentley to AutoCAD Users: "Help Us Help You"
Bentley is surveying AutoCAD Users facing Autodesk's forced retirement program. Respondents will receive a free gift.
Bentley releases survey results of AutoCAD users
Bentley releases survey results of AutoCAD users facing autodesk's forced retirement program.
Upgrade site for AutoCAD
Bentley opens "You Deserve Better" upgrade site for AutoCAD users facing forced retirement of their doftware by Autodesk
Space is always in short supply on offshore oil platforms, which makes equipment additions a real challenge.
The trick is to fit the new equipment into the existing plant while avoiding interferences.
Fewer interferences mean less rework - and fewer dollars spent hauling people and equipment to and from the platform via helicopter.
"Our ability to perform interference checking on the 3D model and point cloud reduced the amount of rework required in this project to less than 1 percent," said Mark Christenson, CAE/CAD manager for VECO.
"We calculated that our ability to detect a fit problem with the nozzles saved $206,000 in rework".
"We also found interference problems with a coalescing filter that saved $166,000".
"By nearly eliminating interference on piping, 3D modeling saved another $72,000".
"Finally, the improved communications provided by modeling saved $36,000 in trips to and from the platform." Retrofits are particularly difficult on older platforms since accurate as-built drawings or models generally don't exist.
Often, engineers and designers end up making numerous trips out to the platform in order to model the existing design.
This gives them a starting point for the new design work.
Even then, up to 40 percent of the project may still need to be reworked, which significantly drives up construction costs.
VECO used laser scanning and 3D modeling to cut the cost of adding a production separator to the ConocoPhillips' Tyonek platform.
The company's streamlined approach to this type of work generates the information needed to avoid interferences between existing and new equipment.
At the same time, it saves the time required to convert the point cloud created by laser scanning into a coherent model.
VECO's small crew used Leica's HDS45000 time-of-flight laser scanner to create a point cloud of the existing equipment in the area in which the new separator would be added.
It took them two days at a cost of only $30,000.
Rather than using the point cloud generated as a reference to create a detailed as-built model of the existing plant, VECO designers used Bentley CloudWorx software to move the point cloud directly into MicroStation.
They were then able to work with the data using MicroStation's rendering, visualization, and interference checking tools.
The designers modeled a few of the most critical existing components using Bentley AutoPLANT to improve the clarity, while leaving the rest of the point cloud as is.
Finally, they used AutoPLANT to design the new separator, while maintaining complete knowledge of the environment into which the new equipment would be fitted.
• Bentley Systems: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Buildingtalk email newsletter
• Buildingtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
