Lessons Learned From Template

Installation in Harsh Environments

T.J acobsen, T.Nss
Subsea 7
1. ABSTRACT
Subsea templates are traditionally transported to the relevant installation site either on
the deck of a crane vessel or a barge, depending on their size and shape. In both cases
the template has to be lifted off from deck and lowered through the splash zone.
Another possible way of transporting and installing a subsea template is to perform a
submerged tow through the moonpool of an offshore service vessel. It may be argued
that such an operation will have a wider operational window than traditional methods
since offshore lifts are eliminated. However transit time during towing may reduce the
profitability of this method. This paper outlines the two methods for template
installation, and states typical installation criteria based on model tests and empirical
data from full scale-measurements. Based on model tests, a numerical hydrodynamic
model is made of both methods and the typical design criteria prior to the offshore
operation are established. Also lessons learned from the offshore operations are
outlined and novel structures for improving deck-handling are introduced.

2. INTRODUCTION
The marine industry is growing, and the tendency of going deeper and developing
new cost efficient installation concepts does not seem to end. Further development in
the oil- and gas industry requires more complex subsea technology and new cost
efficient methods for transportation & installation of subsea modules. This also
requires detailed planning of marine operations with emphasis on equipment design,
and safe installation criteria.

Traditional methods for installation of subsea templates involve offshore lifts and
hence the possibility of pendulum motions in air and snatch loads in lifting slings and
lifting wire. In recent years, more advanced calculation methods and vessel equipment
have been developed to increase installation criteria and ensure safe marine
operations. However, marine contractors are still strongly dependent on weather and
vessel limitations. This dependency can be reduced by quantifying the nature of the
limiting factors for installation and development of novel installation assisting
structures.

3. HARSH WEATHER INSTALLATION WINDOWS
Marine operations may be delayed due to environmental conditions exceeding
prescribed operational levels leading to a possible increase in the duration of the
operations. Marine operations which must be completed without break are called
weather critical operations. Otherwise they are termed non-critical. A template
installation done by a cranevessel has usually an operation reference period of 12
hours. On marginal lifts using conventional crane vessels, a 300Te template is
overboarded in significant sea states of 2m or below. On some fields in the
Norwegian sea, a weather window with Hs<2 for 12 hours can be challenging, and
usually offshore operations are limited to the summer month of May to August. This
can be seen on the figure below showing characteristic duration, including waiting
time in order to perform marine operations limited by a significant wave height of
2.0m for 12 hours.

Figure 1 Characteristic durations, Hs=2[m] for 12 hours. Courtesy of Statoil
The figures show duration characteristics for completing a critical operation including
waiting time. Duration is measured from the day the operation is ready for launching.
The day of launching is assumed to be an arbitrary day within the relevant month.

Figure 2 Characteristic durations, Hs=3[m] for 12 hours. Courtesy of Statoil
As seen from Figure 1 & Figure 2, increasing the operational window from Hs=2m to
Hs=3m may increase the operability window by a factor of 3-4 during winter months
in the Norwegian sea. This is very beneficial for operator and contractors seeking to
maximizing vessel utilization for field development and minimizing waiting on
weather. Hence a modest increase in structure over boarding criteria, can greatly
influence vessel utilization.

4. MEASURED LOADS DURING TEMPLATE OVERBOARDING
OPERATIONS
Since the introduction of active heave compensated crane vessels with knuckle boom
cranes of 400Te, several successful installation operations of 300 subsea templates
have been completed. Due to the high utilization of vessel equipment, the large
geometrical dimensions of the structure, several engineering hours are used to ensure
a safe and efficient installation operation. Particular interest is made in arranging a
safe deck handling phase of the operation, where the template is controlled in air by
the use of tugger wires routed from deck mounted winches. Vessel roll and pitch are
important for the in-air behaviour of the template.

Crossing of the splash zone is also an important phase of the operation where
quasistatic buoyancy forces and dynamic slamming forces impose large variation in
the cranewire tension. Due to the large geometrical dimensions and shape of the
suction anchors, large quantities of entrapped air and entrapped water can be
challenging to quantify as an input into deployment analyses and may set operational
restrictions. This is further discussed in chapter 5.

As a basis of comparison, the operational weather & maximum dynamic amplification
factor (DAF) recorded during offshore operations of 9 template installation are
presented in Table 1 below. All environmental data and crane loggings are taken in
the period from 2008 to 2012 by the vessel Skandi Acergy.



Structure
Environment DAF
H
S
T
P
Deck handling Splash zone Submerged
Gja ITS 0.9 8 1.05 1 0.9
Tyrihans ITS 2.1 9 1.05 1.16 1.32
Lavrans ITS 1 10 1.01 1 1.1
Visund Sr ITS 1.6 9 1.05 1.05 0.9
Hyme - - 1.05 1 0.9
Vigdis NE - - 1.01 1.11 -
Skuld R & P ITS 1.7 13 1.01 1.07 0.9
Visund Nord ITS 1.3

- 1.07 -
Table 1 Maximum recorded DAF during offshore operations
As seen in Table 1 the maximum recorded DAF (related to weight in air) seems to
occur independently of operation phase. This is also the DAF of importance for the
crane utilization. However it should be noted that during crossing of the splash zone
there is a quasistatic force occurring from buoyancy and entrapped air in the suction
anchors acting upwards. Hence, the dynamics during splash zone crossing are greater
than during deck handling, but not necessarily the cranewire tension. Also during the
submerged phase of the operation a typical template has 50 Te of buoyancy from the
displaced water volume of the structure hence, reducing the crane wire tension and
DAF. It should be noted that this buoyancy is very dependent on hatch/air opening
and lowering velocity and amplitude. If the air evacuation is restricted, large
buoyancy forces may act giving risk of slack in the crane wire.



Figure 3 ITS deployment operations
The results from Table 1 show that the maximum registered DAF during the offshore
operations are relative low. Also the registered environments during the operations are
low, showing that most template overboarding operations are done in significant
seastates (Hs) lower than 2m. Feedback from offshore operations on conventional
monohull vessel is that the limit for conventional deck handling by the use tugger
winches are approximately 1-2 degree of roll and pitch.

By establishing a numerical panel model of a typical construction vessel with a 400Te
construction vessel as seen from Figure 4, for a typical representative loading
condition and wave spectrum, it can be seen from Figure 4 that these limits are often
exceeded for longer wave periods. Hence in order for efficient deck handling with the
current technology of using tugger winches to restrain the load, the seastate for safe
deck handling on these type of operations are usually limited to Hs<2m. This is again
indicated in Table 1 where it shows that most installation operations are done
seastates below 2m significant wave height. Often the vessel needs to wait on weather
to get these safe overboarding criteria. The design criteria for overboarding operations
are further evaluated in section 6.

Figure 4 Maximum vessel rotations Hs=2.0[m]

5. SUBMERGED TOWING
Another possible way of transporting a subsea template is to perform a submerged
tow through the moonpool of an offshore service vessel. It is argued that such an
operation will have a wider operational window than traditional methods since all
offshore lifts are eliminated and will accordingly be more cost efficient. A submerged
towing operation of a heavy structure also enables maximum utilization of the crane
capacity on board the vessel, which ensures a safe installation process. During a
submerged towing operation, the dynamic behaviour of the template and tow
arrangement will depend upon the hydrodynamic loads, which act on the components
of the system. The magnitude of these forces will affect the deflection angle of the
towing wire in the moonpool and influence the probability that slack in the wire will
occur. Accordingly, the forces will also set the operational limits both regarding
permissible sea states and towing velocity. Hence, it is important that the
computational models and procedures are validated before such an operation is
carried out.

The tow- and installation concept outlined within this paper is designed to allow a
monohull construction vessel to pick up the template from its wet-store location,
transit to the field with the template suspended through the vessels moonpool and
install the templates at the location in a single vessel operation.
A winch system is used for the pick-up of the templates from the wet-store location
and to set down the templates at the field. During subsea transportation the template is
suspended from static hang-off wires connected to two trunnions on the hang-off
4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
-1
0
1
2
3
4
5
Hs=2.0m
M
a
x

a
n
g
l
e
d

[
d
e
g
]
Peak Period


max roll
max pitch
tower. During tow the winch system is unloaded and the subsea sheave connecting the
winch to the template is disconnected and secured in the moonpool.
During set down the template will be lowered to seabed using the winch system.
The winch system is not heave compensated, but a Cranemaster is included for
overload-protection during landing of the templates. The method consists of the
following operations:
Wet-store of template
Pick up and hang-off
Tow to field
Transfer load to heavy lift winch system
Landing of subsea template within the installation criteria

Figure 5 displays some of the stages of the operation.


Figure 5 Stages of operation - Wet Store, Pick up and Hang-off, Tow to field and
Installation of Subsea template
Figure 6 shows a schematic picture of the winch system. The system comprises of
a 300te winch (located outside the figure) with an 88mm winch wire. The wire
runs from the winch, over the fairlead, down through the moonpool and around
the subsea running sheave block. Further the wire runs back up again to the
Cranemaster which is connected to the hang-off tower. The template itself is
supported by four slings, all connected to a delta plate. The static hang-off rigging
used during tow of the templates is also displayed in Figure 6. The hang-off
grommets (not taking any load in the figure) are connected at the hang-off
trunnions and to the delta plate.
A fibre-strop is used between the running sheave block and the delta plate. The
strop was connected / disconnected two times for each template and was chosen to
ensure easy ROV handling. Between each connection the strop was brought up on
deck for visual inspection.

The method was successfully used for tow and installation of the four Tyrihans
structures in May/June 2007 ref /12/. Previously the Yttergryta Integrated Satellite
Structure (ISS) was installed using the same concept in January 2007. Further the
Tordis ISS (March 2007), the Heidrun Template (January 2006), the Mikkel Host
Protection Structures (2003) and the Tune A SPS (November 2005) have all been
towed and installed in the North Sea by Subsea 7.


Figure 6 Winch system
Challenges related the tow and installation concept might be divided into the
following three categories:
Geographic
o Harsh environmental conditions with a significant seastate of 11.5m
with one year return period
o Tow distance and fatigue
o Water depth for installation - vertical resonance
Template properties
o Massive weight compared to installation vessel
o Large hydrodynamic loads due to suction anchors
Operational
o Heavy rigging
o Complex ROV operations
o Non heave compensated system




5.1 NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF TOWING OPERATION
Based on lessons learned during actual towing operations, and model tests from ref
/5/, a strip-theory model is made in the time-domain simulation software SIMO
developed by Marintek.

Figure 7 Submerged towing of subsea template
An experimental investigation is performed to simulate towing operations for
different environmental conditions. The main response quantity of interest for the
experimental investigation is the tension in the main wire connected to the template
rigging. Dynamic tension forces in the towing wire are generated by an oscillator and
they are measured by a force ring. In order to simulate a towing operation, the
forward speed of the towing carriage is used to represent the horizontal translation of
the vessel and a vertical oscillator is used to model the vertical translation of the
vessel (i.e. heave motion) in regular waves for head sea.


Figure 8 Submerged towing experiment in the longitudinal direction
Findings from the experiment conclude that the dynamics occurring in the towing
wire are large for swell dominated sea. The hang-off structure and the lifting points on
the structure need to be properly designed for fatigue loads in order to ensure a safe
towing operation. For a moonpool tow, clashing frequency between the towing wire
and the moonpool edges increases drastically with increasing towing speed. In general
typical towing speeds are 3 [knots] Ref./11/. Hence submerged towing can be an
efficient method for subsea equipment installation when the availability of offshore
construction vessels is limited, but restrictions to transit conditions apply.
6. OVERBOARDING ASSISTMENT AIDS
As mentioned in the previous chapters, the limiting criteria for installation operations
are often deck handling. To improve overboarding criteria, several novel concepts
have been developed in the industry. Examples of such structures are as follows:

Tugger wires
Deck mounted winches with steel wires have been used for several decades for load
control of subsea structures. Using deck mounted winches, pendulum motions can be
stopped and rotations on the deployed object can be implemented to ensure safe
loading. Challenges related to the use of tugger-winches are to control potential snap
loads and also synchronizing operator movements during the lift. Also the wire angle
need to be as horizontal and snag-free as possible which in reality often is hard to
achieve.

Figure 9 Tugger wires

Static pivot point
The pivot point load control arrangement was pioneered on the Skandi Acergy in
2008. The principle is that the load is controlled laterally & longitudinally during
overboarding. Swings, momentum & hence large impact forces are not allowed to
develop as the load is kept under control using a system of tuggers. The concept has
been successfully used on both spools and template structures, but it should be noted
that not all lifts are suitable for the pivot point due to the geometry of the loads,
obstacles on deck, crane SWL and radius and rigging and hook height. Also the best
utilization of the pivot point is when the load is kept on it for as much of the lift as
possible allowing for the greatest angle of rotation.


Figure 10 Static pivot point

Static
Pivot point
A lift with a pivot point is planned for the pivot point located in the optimum position
but is still a compromise due to the following:
o The geometry of the load can interfere with the crane or other fixed obstacles
on deck
o The arc that the crane hook has to follow is limited by SWL of the crane at the
varying radii
o The arc is also limited by available hook height
o Limitations as to suitable locations on the load where an interface to the pivot
can be achieved
Hence the effect of these can be:
o The lift is exposed to a greater portion of the slew/rotation operation only
controlled by deck winches
o The lift cannot be done using a pivot point at all so the entire deployment
operation is done using a series of deck winches
o Worst case is that without suitable control, the lift cannot be performed at all

Moving pivot point
Based on lessons learned and the need for controlling the rotation of the load for as
much of the overboarding as possible, a more flexible version of the static pivot point
has been developed to be used on a wide variety of projects. The movable pivot point
offers a far more flexible approach in applying the principles of load control. The
concept is based on a modular track layout where the pivot point is allowed to be
skidded on the vessel deck to increase the rotation control.

Figure 11 Moving pivot point

The modular track layout consists of straight and curved sections assembled to suit
the overboarding schematic of the considered structure. A snag-free trolley with a
suitable pivot point is mounted on it and is driven along the during the lift in operation
in coordination with small incremental crane moves and adjustment of deck tugger
winches. The trolley system is made suitable for spools & large structures typically
with suction cans.





Universal load assistant (ULA)
As indicated above, several technology initiatives to enhance operations in
challenging sea states have been performed in the last years. One of the latest one is a
crane lifting aid designed to improve deck handling safety during lifting and with the
potential to significantly extend winter-weather operations in harsh water like the
Norwegian Sea.

The Universal Launch Assistant (ULA) is a load-controlling mechanical arrangement
attached to the crane pedestal of existing vessels and controlled by the crane operator.
Its telescopic arms swivel around the crane pedestal, and give firmer and safer
handling of horizontal inertia loads including templates, manifolds and associated
spools. The ULA replaces the use of winches with holdback wires which are
conventionally used to control horizontal loads, and therefore enhances on-board
safety as well as significantly improving the utilisation of vessels involved in
construction work in challenging weather conditions.


Figure 12 Universal Load Assistant



7. CONCLUSION
Installation of subsea structure, lifting operations
In recent years larger and heavier subsea structures are being installed in harsher
environment than before and this requires advanced and more sophisticated tools to
model and analyse the lifting operation to perform safe and optimum installation
engineering. Subsea 7 has successfully completed many such installations in the last
couple of years and the lessons learnt from those projects are:
It is concluded that the SIMO provides an excellent basis for the lifting
analysis by being versatile to model complex lifting operations in the time
domain.
The forces occurring during deployment of templates are often limited since
there is a large buoyancy force acting upward reduces the total dynamic hook
load and DAF during splash zone crossing.
The limiting criteria for deploying most large structures are deck handling and
vessel kinematics.

Tow solution
The Tyrihans project installed four subsea templates in the Haltenbanken using a
small monohull construction vessel. For this case the installation cost was
significantly lower than the cost of using a heavy lift vessel. The campaign was
completed in a safe manner with all critical operations performed subsea by ROV and
engineered ensuring ROV friendly solutions. The following are the key conclusions
and lessons learnt:
No manual handling of heavy rigging offshore
All heavy lifts were performed inshore in sheltered waters
Extremely limited exposure to personnel
Cost-effective solution
Ensures availability of vessels
Limited use of sophisticated cranes and crane modes subject to higher risk
of technical / software failures

The applied tow configuration was stable without any excessive motions. Further
the performance and lessons learnt confirm that this method is suitable for installation
of these kinds of structures. By using this method the number of suitable vessels
available on the marked is increased dramatically.
Subsea 7 has applied for a patent based on the described concept, and the method
is currently patent pending.

Further advances in overboarding assistance
As it is pointed out in this paper, the limiting phase for many marine operations is
deck handling and not the limiting force criteria related to crane capacity during
deployment. Several novel structures to improve deck handling have been introduced
in the industry, but these are often limited to specific structure geometries and
dimensions.



8. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank Daniel Karunakaran and Kenneth Aarset for technical advice while
preparing this paper. Subsea 7 is acknowledged for permission to publish the paper.
This paper reflects the opinion of the authors and does not imply endorsement by the
company to which acknowledgments are made.

9. REFERENCES
Ref. /1/ DNV-RP-H103 Modelling and analysis of Marine Operations
Ref. /2/ DNV-RP-C205 Environmental conditions and environmental loads
Ref. /3/ Faltinsen, O. M., Sea Loads on Ships and Offshore Structures
Ref. /4/ Statoil, Dompap and Fossekall fields, Metocen Design Basis
Ref. /5/ MARINTEK, Hydrodynamic data for the GJA ITS installation. Forced
oscillation model tests of ITS, MARINTEK Report No. 550147.00.02
Ref. /6/ ritsland, O, et al A summary of Subsea Module hydrodynamic data
MRINTEK Report No. 511110.05
Ref. /7/ Torsethaugen, K. And S. Haver Simplified Double Peak Spectral Model for
Ocean Waves Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Offshore and Polar
Engineering Conference , Toulon, France, May 23-28, 2004
Ref. /8/ NORSOK N-003 Section 6.2.2.3.
Ref. /9/ M.J. Tucker & E.G. Pitt Elsevier Waves in ocean engineering
Ref. /10/ Jacobsen, Nss, Karunakaran Comparison with full scale measurements for
lifting operations
Ref. /11/ Jacobsen, Leira Numerical and experimental studies of submerged towing
of a subsea template Elsevier Ocean Engineering
Ref. /12/ K. Aarset, A.Sarkar, D.Karunakaran Lessons learnt from lifting operations
and towing of heavy structures in North sea