As the Moray West Offshore Wind Farm enters the final stages of construction, our co-founder and senior engineer Jon Benzie shares some thoughts on Quoceant’s work on the project.
"I’ve been heading up our work with the Ocean Winds team since 2019. Initially supporting their Moray East Offshore Wind Project and then transitioning to provide support to sister project, Moray West.
Over the 2 projects, we’ve been engaged on many fronts ranging from review of contractor documentation and cost analysis, through to design of temporary work equipment for both onshore and offshore operations, and on-site client support. During the Moray West project we gave engineering support to Ocean Winds including production of engineering drawings, tolerance assessment on as-built structures, and non-linear finite element analysis to support engineering and project decisions.
The project highlight for me was the detailed analysis work we carried out on the monopile structures in their temporary phases through to successful offshore installation, capturing how these giant structures interface with other parts of the system, including the offshore substations. The many variables and the level of accuracy expected made for challenging work that generated significant learning for Ocean Winds to apply on future projects. Quoceant’s efforts throughout helped Ocean Winds to make the right design decisions to maintain the project schedule.
Another piece of work that was particularly interesting was the design of covers for the transition piece (TP) sub-structures, that link the monopile to the towers, from concept through to fabrication. These were designed to protect the internals of the TPs against the elements during all phases prior to turbine installation, including vessel transport and installation onto the offshore monopiles. The covers also provide safe access into the main structures for operations such as flange connections and cable installation. The design incorporated special features requested by Ocean Winds and their respective offshore contractors to produce a versatile solution that is fully recyclable.
Working with Ocean Winds and their respective contractors on these two projects has proven and expanded Quoceant’s capability and, through the experience and lessons learned by all parties, it has further advanced the knowledge base for offshore wind projects.”
Jon Benzie is a co-founder of Quoceant and a chartered mechanical engineer. He is an expert in finite element analysis of marine structures and has pushed the envelope of analysis techniques for fatigue driven structures. He has worked in the offshore renewable energy sector for 20 years and his experience spans design, manufacture, installation and operational phases.
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