Introduction

2DURABILITY & LIFETIME PREDICTION

Durability & lifetime prediction are not just buzzwords, it is at the heart of everything we do. Being confronted with the increasing demand in and cost of energy, it is essential that material products become more costefficient and durable, and that asset owners can assess whether their infrastructure is fit-for-purpose at any time. This is valid for both traditional and renewable energy sources. OCAS is in a good position to deal with all aspects of durability and lifetime prediction. First, we develop, optimise, and bring steels into production for different types of applications. Steel, nearly 100% recyclable, remains an optimal base product, both in cost and performance, for a wide range of customers worldwide, no matter what sector they are operating in. But the base steel alone cannot meet all customers’ requirements. Its performance needs to be complemented by adequate joining methods and coating technologies that add real value by upgrading its base performance in terms of longevity and durability. And hereby we try to implement learnings across sectors. When steel products are used in industrial assets, they can be prone to unexpected environmental circumstances, loading conditions or even design errors. The OCAS Technical Support and Services team, together with our sister company ENDURES and OCAS’s spin-off GUARANTEED, is involved in analysing failures, proposing adequate repair methods and remedy actions to prevent failures from occurring again.

In this field, digitalisation is clearly present as well. Customers are more and more interested in knowing the real performance of their critical components, to push the boundaries of traditional conservatism. So, we not only need to get involved in the fit-for-purpose analysis, but we also need to be able to monitor performance on-site. This means that we need to interpret the readings of a structural health monitoring system and translate them into remaining life assessments (supported by advanced FEM studies), sound the alarm in case of overloading, or track exploitation habits of various user teams, etc. So, to address our customer’ needs, apart from being a steel developer, we need to be able to predict the integrity of the end-user’s component too. This durability and lifetime prediction section will give some cases whereby we look at the properties of the base steel, such as its resistance to wear, fatigue, and corrosion. At the same time, you can discover our work on the structural aspects of critical steel components through design, testing qualification (including XL size) and development of new methodologies whilst implementing those across different market segments. Examples are for instance the JaCo project whereby we push the limits of offshore wind foundations design applications whilst we sell the testing methodology to a partner, active in the traditional energy segment, across the Atlantic. You will discover the benefits of structural health monitoring and digital twin capabilities of SafeLife. We also feature cases of Amstrong® Ultra high strength steels, Magnelis® high corrosion resistant metallic coating e.a. All this, whilst energy transition remains at the heart of what we do. We showcase the equipment we used to qualify the AM-BLADE in traditional oil discovery markets for future use with CO2 for CCS applications. So, whilst we develop the steels of tomorrow, we are proving the integrity of today’s steels with new applications as well.

Nico De Wispelaere, Marc Vanderschueren & Tom Waterschoot