Deep Penetrating Anchors - a cost effective anchoring solution for mooring oil and gas facilities in deep water. The offshore oil and gas industry is currently directing considerable research efforts towards the development of cost-effective anchoring solutions suitable for mooring floating installations in deep water. This project aims to enhance the limited understanding of the Deep Penetrating Anchor (DPA), which has been identified as having the most potential to meet industry demands as it ....Deep Penetrating Anchors - a cost effective anchoring solution for mooring oil and gas facilities in deep water. The offshore oil and gas industry is currently directing considerable research efforts towards the development of cost-effective anchoring solutions suitable for mooring floating installations in deep water. This project aims to enhance the limited understanding of the Deep Penetrating Anchor (DPA), which has been identified as having the most potential to meet industry demands as it extends the current water depth limit of 2000 metres. Successful completion of this project will result in a DPA experimental database that will not only form the basis for predicting anchor performance, but will also serve as a means of validating robust and versatile design tools that can be used in offshore engineering practice.Read moreRead less
A novel foundation to extend the operation of mobile structures into deeper water. Oil and gas is a key industry in Australia, contributing A$17 billion to the economy. However, with the large accessible reserves in shallower waters becoming exhausted, Australian oil and gas companies require new technologies to extend their capabilities. The research in this proposal addresses this concern, providing an extension of the operational depth range of mobile jack-up platforms from 120 to 200 m. This ....A novel foundation to extend the operation of mobile structures into deeper water. Oil and gas is a key industry in Australia, contributing A$17 billion to the economy. However, with the large accessible reserves in shallower waters becoming exhausted, Australian oil and gas companies require new technologies to extend their capabilities. The research in this proposal addresses this concern, providing an extension of the operational depth range of mobile jack-up platforms from 120 to 200 m. This creates the opportunity to develop the significant number of Australia's smaller gas fields that are currently uneconomical to exploit. The proposed project will contribute to the future competitiveness of Australia's oil and gas industry and ensuring energy supply for the sustained growth of the Australian economy.Read moreRead less
Economic Aspects of Wool in Western Australia. Over the past 15 years, the wool industry in WA has gone from bust to boom.. This project develops a general equilibrium model to analyse the impact of the world economic conditions on the wool industry and the WA economy in general. We will also investigate the reasons for the systematically lower wool prices in Fremantle and the interactions between Australian wool prices and exchange rates. The results will enhance understanding of the industry, ....Economic Aspects of Wool in Western Australia. Over the past 15 years, the wool industry in WA has gone from bust to boom.. This project develops a general equilibrium model to analyse the impact of the world economic conditions on the wool industry and the WA economy in general. We will also investigate the reasons for the systematically lower wool prices in Fremantle and the interactions between Australian wool prices and exchange rates. The results will enhance understanding of the industry, and offer insights as to how it might be made less volatile in the future by providing valuable information to woolgrowers and policy makers.Read moreRead less
Wearable thermoelectric textiles for portable microelectronics. Wearable thermoelectrics enable the power generation from the temperature difference between human body and ambient temperature by using thermoelectric effect. This project aims to design eco-friendly wearable thermoelectric textiles to realize high-efficiency solid-state power generation and meet individual needs with human comfort and health. The target is to achieve a power density in the as-designed thermoelectric textiles by th ....Wearable thermoelectric textiles for portable microelectronics. Wearable thermoelectrics enable the power generation from the temperature difference between human body and ambient temperature by using thermoelectric effect. This project aims to design eco-friendly wearable thermoelectric textiles to realize high-efficiency solid-state power generation and meet individual needs with human comfort and health. The target is to achieve a power density in the as-designed thermoelectric textiles by the optimization of materials and device design. The outcome will open up a new platform for the green and sustainable charge for portable microelectronics, which will lead to an innovative technology for energy management, which will place Australia at the forefront of wearable electronics and textile industry.Read moreRead less
Integrating Stress and Strain Data from the North West Shelf, Australia: Implications for Hydrocarbon Seal Integrity. Many exploration wells in the Australian North West Shelf encounter residual columns from which hydrocarbons have leaked due to fault reactivation. Recently there has been a significant increase in our knowledge of contemporary stress (from data such as borehole breakouts)
and strain (from fault reactivation styles) on the North West Shelf.
This project will integrate informati ....Integrating Stress and Strain Data from the North West Shelf, Australia: Implications for Hydrocarbon Seal Integrity. Many exploration wells in the Australian North West Shelf encounter residual columns from which hydrocarbons have leaked due to fault reactivation. Recently there has been a significant increase in our knowledge of contemporary stress (from data such as borehole breakouts)
and strain (from fault reactivation styles) on the North West Shelf.
This project will integrate information on stress and strain in order to investigate whether the current state-of-stress is consistent with
observed reactivation styles, and thus develop predictive models for
fault reactivation and hydrocarbon leakage based on the distribution of
stress and strain.Read moreRead less
Investigation of alternative footing shapes to mitigate instabilities during installation of offshore drilling platforms. Spudcan footings are used to support three legged mobile drilling rigs, exploring and extracting oil and gas in water depths of up to 150 metres. Despite efforts by the industry to minimise the risks during rig installation, punch-through incidents (i.e. unexpected rapid penetration of the footings) and bending of the leg whilst installing the spudcan next to a footprint (poc ....Investigation of alternative footing shapes to mitigate instabilities during installation of offshore drilling platforms. Spudcan footings are used to support three legged mobile drilling rigs, exploring and extracting oil and gas in water depths of up to 150 metres. Despite efforts by the industry to minimise the risks during rig installation, punch-through incidents (i.e. unexpected rapid penetration of the footings) and bending of the leg whilst installing the spudcan next to a footprint (pockmark from previous rig installation) continue to occur at an increasing rate, causing economic loss of $5 to50 million per incident. Combining advanced physical and numerical modelling, this project aims to develop optimised spudcan shapes, and corresponding design approaches and guidelines, to mitigate these risks, ensuring safe installation of rigs in hazardous regions.Read moreRead less
Estimation of spudcan penetration resistance in stratified soils directly from field penetrometer data and quantification of punch-through risk. Foundations for mobile drilling rigs exhibit significant failure rate in the offshore oil and gas industry, which contributes $22 billion annually to the Australian economy. The project will develop a robust design approach for these foundations, based on field penetrometer data and accounting for the highly stratified nature of offshore sediments.
The neo- and seismo-tectonics of northwestern Australia. Australia's two largest earthquakes occurred in NW Australia (magnitudes 7 and 7.9 in 1941 and 1906). Onshore and offshore geologic evidence indicates other such events in recent geological history. Our present seismic database records no such events. We propose to document the nature, frequency, intensity, distribution and possible causes of seismicity in NW Australia, through deployment of seismograph arrays. We will test the effects ....The neo- and seismo-tectonics of northwestern Australia. Australia's two largest earthquakes occurred in NW Australia (magnitudes 7 and 7.9 in 1941 and 1906). Onshore and offshore geologic evidence indicates other such events in recent geological history. Our present seismic database records no such events. We propose to document the nature, frequency, intensity, distribution and possible causes of seismicity in NW Australia, through deployment of seismograph arrays. We will test the effects of basement reactivation, determine the crustal structure beneath the cratonic mass, examine onshore and offshore faults, determine local and regional stress orientations and investigate implications for petroleum production in the region, and whether natural resource extraction causes local seismicity.Read moreRead less
Novel gas-liquid columns for liquefied natural gas (LNG) production. Novel gas-liquid columns for liquefied natural gas (LNG) production. This project aims to design distillation and absorption columns, perhaps the most important unit operations in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, and whose optimization is integral to overall performance of any LNG plant. This project will use 3D printers to rapidly prototype concepts of columns and their internals, and test them using flow characterization ....Novel gas-liquid columns for liquefied natural gas (LNG) production. Novel gas-liquid columns for liquefied natural gas (LNG) production. This project aims to design distillation and absorption columns, perhaps the most important unit operations in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, and whose optimization is integral to overall performance of any LNG plant. This project will use 3D printers to rapidly prototype concepts of columns and their internals, and test them using flow characterization tools and numerical models. The final outcome of the project will be a set of designs of the columns, which should be more efficient, safer and cheaper to operate, and have smaller physical and environmental footprints, thus helping the Australian LNG industry to stay globally competitive.Read moreRead less
Alarm Management - Silence is Golden. This project develops novel strategies and tools that aid alarm rationalisation in all types of process plants (e.g. gas, petrochemical, mining) by extracting groupings of related alarm tags from an enormous dataset of complex process data. These groupings are used in re-aligning the alarm systems, thus overcoming problems associated with the common practice of over-alarming, which may contribute to incidents like the Longford tragedy in Victoria. The approa ....Alarm Management - Silence is Golden. This project develops novel strategies and tools that aid alarm rationalisation in all types of process plants (e.g. gas, petrochemical, mining) by extracting groupings of related alarm tags from an enormous dataset of complex process data. These groupings are used in re-aligning the alarm systems, thus overcoming problems associated with the common practice of over-alarming, which may contribute to incidents like the Longford tragedy in Victoria. The approach is cost effective and improves alarm management. It addresses economic and safety concerns of the process industry as well as concerns raised in the study commissioned by the Institute of Engineers, Australia.Read moreRead less