(Courtesy of FMC Technologies) | Reliability and safety of subsea oil and gas production and processing systems- an important part of the SUBPRO research and innovation center at NTNU. |
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In this field, the RAMS Group activities are coordinated with SUBPRO, the new NTNU research and innovation center for subsea oil and gas production and processing.
New PhD and Postdoc scholarships
SUBPRO is currently announcing several PhD and Postdoc scholarships. If you are interested in this area of research, you should consider to apply one of these positions/scholarships. The application deadline is 20 April, 2015.
This is a unique opportunity to join the largest research program ever on subsea production and processing starting up at NTNU in 2015.
New subsea solutions are needed to increase the recovery factor of existing fields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, to reduce the cost of subsea installations and to allow development of new more demanding fields, such as in the Northern areas and the Barents sea.
These gaps in technology and system solutions were the background for an initiative taken by five departments at NTNU (including the Department of Production and Quality Engineering) at NTNU to join to become a center for research-driven innovation (“senter for forskningsdrevet innovasjon”, SFI): SUBPRO. The main focus of SUBPRO is directed to separation fundamentals, subsea unit and system design, and subsea system operation and control.
SFI SUBPRO is the largest research project in the world in subsea oil and gas production and processing. The total funding is approximately 30 million per year over eight years, and is scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2015. Key industry partners are oil companies, manufactures, and service providers in the qualification of new technology.
Reliability, availability, maintainability/maintenance and safety (RAMS) and subsea control systems are among the identified research challenges of SUBPRO, and include:
- Incorporation of reliability and availability in the design of subsea technology and systems
- New safety barrier strategy for subsea systems
- Health and prognostic management
- Integration of control and statistical modeling for optimizing production and control with remaining useful life
- Integrated models for simulation and control of subsea and downhole production and boosting systems
- Monitoring of system state and equipment condition for subsea processes based on detailed dynamic models
The start-up for the PhD projects is planned for fall 2015. As a PhD student, you will be part of a large group of other PhD students, professors, and post-docs - in addition to the industry partners.
If you are interested in starting a PhD study, and can document a B level or better in your master program at NTNU, we hope that you will consider applying for PhD positions within this program. We seek students from the mechanical engineering (PUP) program, subsea program, international master program in RAMS, and the cybernetics program.
Please contact one of the following key personnel for the above areas if you have questions:
- Reliability assessment mary.a.lundteigen@ntnu.no or anne.barros@ntnu.no
- Control systems: Christian.holden@ntnu.no or olav.egeland@ntnu.no