Abstract
Rigid spools are critical components in subsea production field developments, providing the final connection between wells, structures, and trunklines. Their design must account for a wide range of uncertainties related to installation procedures, pipeline-induced loads, fabrication and metrology tolerances, connector allowable loads, environmental actions, and soil properties.
In congested layouts, where multiple structures, PLETs, and spools coexist within limited space, these challenges are further amplified.
Spool design is inherently iterative and relies heavily on nonlinear finite element analyses to evaluate tie-in loads and displacements. Translations and rotations associated with alignment requirements, stroking, fabrication and metrology tolerances are typically introduced in the FE models as prescribed end displacements. In addition, several design parameters are defined within tolerance ranges and must be investigated at their extreme values.
As tolerances act in both upper and lower bound directions for each degree of freedom, the number of possible load combinations increases exponentially.
An appropriate analysis strategy is therefore required to identify the governing load cases while maintaining numerical efficiency and limiting the overall analysis effort.
In this work, Dassault Systèmes Isight was applied to automate the execution of hundreds of Abaqus simulations, replacing time-consuming manual workflows or maintenance-intensive custom scripting solutions. Design of Experiments methods were used to explore the design space, rank influential parameters, and assess interactions among uncertainties. The resulting datasets were then used to train surrogate models capable of predicting structural responses in real time with good accuracy. This approach could enable rapid evaluation of thousands of virtual scenarios for design validation, optimization, and robust design studies, potentially reducing turnaround time while increasing engineering insight and decision confidence for offshore projects.
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Speaker
Francesco Tattoli is a mechanical engineer with a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Biomechanical Design and currently works at Saipem SpA within the offshore engineering department in Fano, Italy. His professional background combines academic research experience with over 10 years of industry experience in advanced structural analysis for offshore and subsea engineering applications.
Francesco obtained his Ph.D. through a joint program between Politecnico di Bari and ENSAM ParisTech, where his research focused on the experimental and numerical characterization of Titanium welded joints. His work involved full field strain measurements, residual stress evaluation, fatigue behavior, and material characterization using advanced techniques, leading to several peer-reviewed journal publications and international conference contributions.
In his current role at Saipem, Francesco is involved in EPIC offshore projects, contributing to the structural verification of subsea pipelines, Spools, Jumpers and related systems operating in deep and ultra-deep waters. His activities include nonlinear finite element analyses, stress and fatigue assessment, and the evaluation of complex designs arising from installation constraints, metocean variability, and soil–structure interaction.
Francesco is also actively engaged in developing digital tools and automated simulation workflows using MATLAB, Python, and finite element platforms such as Abaqus, with the objective of improving the numerical efficiency, robustness, and consistency of engineering analyses.
