Objective
In the ever-increasing search by oil majors for new fields and with the advent of advanced drilling and extraction technologies, very deep-water offshore fields are now being developed in the Gulf of Mexico, offshore Brazil and offshore West Africa. There have been significant engineering difficulties to overcome to make the development of deep-water offshore fields possible. However, there are still Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) and inspection problems to solve. One such significant concern is the in-service NDT and inspection of the subsea risers, steel catenary risers (SCRs) and subsea flowlines. Once installed in their subsea environment, conventional NDT techniques will be impossible to apply to these components. Although the pipes comprising these components are manufactured and welded to the highest standards, they nevertheless need to be able to operate for 20 years or more without failure. Fatigue analysis shows that the 'start of life' defect size to ensure that failure will not occur is small (in the region of a mm or so through thickness dimension). It is inevitable that some welding defects of that size will go undetected at the manufactured weld NDT and inspection stage. Some parts of the SCRs (particularly in the least accessible seabed region) will be subject to fatigue loading that could ultimately cause premature failure and significant environmental pollution. In this project, guided wave ultrasonic testing developments are proposed that will overcome the limitations of the current technology and greatly increase the applicability and productivity of the technology. These developments will lead to increased business for EU inspection and maintenance SMEs. Recent business trends have seen oil companies outsource their entire inspection and maintenance requirements to specialist service SMEs. This will significantly increase business opportunities for these SMEs.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences economics and business economics production economics productivity
- engineering and technology materials engineering coating and films
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering sensors
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences environmental sciences pollution
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
FP6-2003-SME-1
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.