Sea and Land Project Consultants at forefront with Sesam

SLP made the switch to Sesam software

The move has opened up new opportunities for them in offshore wind turbine foundation. Sea and Land Project Consultants (SLP), based in Surrey, has taken a new approach in engineering for the offshore wind industry. Their switch to Sesam software brought in a set of tools with a wide scope of use. The company was looking for a more cost-efficient solution with higher capabilities than their previous software.

Wind farms in the North Sea

In early 2016 the switch was made. "Sesam has a fair number of additional capabilities - better capabilities," says Amir Ghamsari, Principal Engineer at Sea and Land Project Consultants.

Since moving to Sesam as their main software, Sesam has been used for a number of studies of jacket structures at FEED level to go to detailed design. SLP completed detailed design for projects in the German sector of the North Sea using Sesam: the Merkur Offshore Substation, Hohe See Offshore Substation and the Deutsche Bucht Offshore Substation. The Merkur substation was recently installed, the two others are currently under construction.

Sesam was used for various types of structures, including substation foundations, jackets and monopiles. "The dynamic capabilities of Sesam allow us to analyse plates and beam elements, for fatigue and more," says Ghamsari.

The graphic representation in the software is another strong point. "The visualization is a big step up for us," he says. "It allows us to understand what is happening and improves communication."

Sam Lawes, Structural Engineer at SLP, praises the customer support team at DNV - Digital Solutions. "They're very good compared to others. DNV really listens to its customers. When we make a request, the developers try to get it in as quickly as possible," says Lawes.

Expanding into new areas with Sesam

"Sesam allows us to expand into different areas and bid on different types of work too," says Ghamsari. "It's a matter of capabilities. With the introduction of large monopiles, there are new challenges and new capabilities required. It's a dynamically sensitive structure. Conventional stick models are insufficient for new designs."

With Sesam, SLP can perform different kinds of analysis, such as time domain analysis. "Sesam opens our hand so we can do what we need to. Previously, we couldn't deal with plate elements properly, which we needed." Another strength of Sesam is the meshing capability, including powerful meshing refinement.

"By using additional modules in Sesam - like Wadam and HydroD - we have better chance of dealing with many types of analyses."

SEA AND LAND PROJECT CONSULTANTS IN BRIEF:

Established in the UK offshore oil and gas industry, SLP's design experience ranges from jackets and topsides of production platforms, to minimum facility platforms, accomodation modules and subsea structures such as midwater arch buoys, risers anchors and subsea protection structures. The company's expertise in the design of jackets and topsides for oil and gas projects has enabled them to adapt such knowledge to the development of offshore wind farm foundations and other related structures. SLP specializes in the structural design of wind farm substations to both UK and European standards and to the exacting BSH Standards and Regulations required for windfarms built in German waters.