Professor Gary Wang
School of Mechatronic Systems Engineering
Simon Fraser University, Canada

Academic Profile:
Dr. Gary Wang is a professor at Simon Fraser University. Dr. Wang’s research interests have been in the area of design and advanced manufacturing.  He has more than 200 referred articles with a large number of papers published in field top journals. He is the most cited scholar worldwide in the area of Intelligent Optimization, and his research lab is recognized one of the world top labs in the field of design optimization. In 2020 Mendeley study, he was ranked No. 15 of the top 2% scholar worldwide in the large field of Design Practice and Management across all disciplines. Dr. Wang is the recipient of the 2014 SFU Excellence in Teaching Award, 2015 FAS Award of Excellence for Teaching, the 2007 Rh Award from University of Manitoba for outstanding research contribution, as well as the 2005 National I. W. Smith award for creative engineering from the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering (CSME). Dr. Wang has been serving as an associate editor for Journal of Engineering Optimization since 2010, geographically representing North America. He also served as an associate editor for the best journal in the field of mechanical design, ASME Transactions, Journal of Mechanical Design in the period of 2013-2019. He is recognized as one of the world leaders in his area and was elected to the rank of ASME Fellow in 2013.

Keynote Lecture

Title: AI-driven Design Optimization and Its Applications

Abstract: Optimization as a systematic search methodology has gone through a number of decades of development. Its application in engineering, however, has been limited. This talk will review the development of four generations of optimization technologies from the perspectives of its application in engineering. The focus will be the 4th generation AI-driven optimization strategies. The concept of AI-driven optimization and its various applications in engineering will be introduced. AI-driven optimization methods have overcome shortcomings of traditional optimization approaches and are ready to be widely adopted in engineering practice. They are amenable for simulation-based engineering, easy to use, and powerful in solving both global optimization and multiobjective optimization problems.

Academic Profile:
Dr. Po Wen Cheng studied aerospace and aeronautic engineering at TU Berlin where he encountered wind energy for the first time. He continued his education at TU Delft and completed a PhD on offshore wind energy, focusing on stochastic modeling of the extreme response. He joined GE Wind after graduating from TU Delft and worked on offshore wind and new technology developments for 9 years. In 2011 he had been appointed to the wind energy chair at the institute of aircraft design, the University of Stuttgart.    
The main research area in the wind energy working group are, 

• Application of measurement technology for wind energy. SWE has been an early adopter of the lidar technology. The focus is the use of lidar for control of wind turbines, wind farm control, wind resource assessment. SWE has several lidar systems for different applications, nacelle mounted lidar for power curve and control application. Long-range scanning lidar system for wind farm flow measurement and short-term power forecasting. For high-resolution measurement of the turbulence, SWE has developed   multi-UAS (Unmanned Air System) to measure the inflow and wake of wind turbines. 

• Modeling and control of wind turbine and wind farms. SWE has been developing modeling techniques that deals with the different fidelity and scale requirements for wind energy applications. Low order models have been developed for controller design and monitoring purpose, medium fidelity models are for load analysis and system design and high fidelity model for investigating specific aerodynamic and hydrodynamic phenomena that cannot be captured with simplified models. The modeling includes single wind turbine, both bottom fixed offshore and floating as well as modeling of a complete wind farm.

Keynote Lecture

Title: How numerical simulations helps the wind turbine growth from 50 kW to 15 MW

Abstract: In this talk we will travel through the history of numerical simulation and its role in the wind turbine design. Building the largest rotating machine that the humans have ever seen is a daunting task for the engineers. This achievement was only possible with the better understanding of how flexible structures like wind turbines respond to stochastic wind loads. Understanding the stochastic nature of the wind was crucial to simulate the effect of the wind on wind turbines. Simulation techniques were used to study aerodynamic and aeroelastic phenomena that have significant impact on the structural loads. Better understanding of wind turbine response leads to advance control and rotor design that steadily increases the turbine size over the time. We will look into the future challenges on the simulation technology in wind energy. The focus is shifting from components, single wind turbine to wind farms and cluster of wind farms as the complexity of the wind power system increases.

Marion Seiersten
Chief  Scientist, Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) 
University of Oslo, Norway

Academic profile: 
Chief Scientist at IFE since 2015 and has since 2017 hold a professor II position at the University of Stavanger. Major professional contribution:  Regeneration of glycol used as hydrate inhibitor, internal corrosion of pipelines for oil and gas, and on application of titanium alloys. Responsible for the work on hydrate inhibitors at IFE. Project experience: Project manager for numerous projects at SI/SINTEF and IFE. Currently managing the Kjeller MEG Loop (KML) projects which have been running since 2005. The projects are organised as joint industry projects financed by the industry and the Research Council of Norway (phase 1 and 2). The projects have ca. 10 industrial sponsors, and the yearly budget has been in the range 5-10 mill. NOK. The major operators and vendors of MEG regenerations plants worldwide are partners in the project.

Other experiences: Supervisor for 3 PhD students and 2 post docs within corrosion and crystal growth during the last 10 years. Member of the programme board Petromaks and Petromaks 2 (Programme for Optimal Management of Petroleum Resources within the Research Council of Norway), 2011 to 2016. Member of the board of OG21 (Task Force for Norwegian technology strategy within oil and gas), 2008-2011. More than 100 publication and presentations on CO2 corrosion, glycol chemistry, application of titanium alloys, high temperature corrosion and ceramics.

Keynote Lecture

Title: Top of line corrosion in gas-condensate pipelines
Marion Seiersten, Arne Dugstad, Jan Nossen and Olav Sendstad, Institute for Energy Technology (IFE)

Abstract: Low alloyed carbon steel is the only viable construction material for long pipelines transporting unprocessed gas-condensate. The aqueous phase that condenses is highly corrosive because it contains dissolved acid gases, i.e., CO2, H2S and organic acids like acetic and formic acid. The high velocity gas also contains droplets of water and condensate, and these will deposit if they hit the steel surface. Ethylene glycol (MEG) injected to prevent ice and hydrates must be considered when predicting the composition and corrosivity of the aqueous phases in the pipeline.

The liquids gathering at the bottom of the pipe have a higher heat capacity than the gas, and the temperature at the top of the pipe will be slightly lower than at the bottom. As the produced fluids cool during the transport from the hot wells to the process plant, aqueous phase will condense to the cold pipe surface and more to the top than to the bottom. The literature on Top-of-line corrosion (ToLC) has grown steadily since the first reported case in 1960. There are also several prediction models for ToLC.

This review is an overview of the main factors that cause ToLC and how these are modelled. Mass transfer from the aqueous phase at the bottom to the top contribute to the condensation. Despite the low MEG to water ratio in the gas due to the difference in vapour pressure, the fraction of MEG in the condensing water may be considerable. The concentration of MEG in the aqueous phase at the top depends on the mass transfer from bottom. The same is the case for organic acids. Liquid droplets entrained in the gas may deposit top of line and contribute to the chemistry of the aqueous phase. Models for ToLC must thus predict the composition of the condensing phases to be able to estimate the corrosion rate.

Professor Anatoly B. Zolotukhin
Gubkin Russian State University (NRU) of Oil and Gas, Moscow, Russia
Northern Arctic Federal University, Arkhangelsk, Russia
University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway

Academic Profile:  https://scholar.google.no/citations?user=LaX7PAEAAAAJ&hl=en

Keynote Lecture

Title: New trends in technologies of the development of the resources in the Arctic and High North

Abstract: Public opinion is slowly but steadily leaning towards replacing hydrocarbons with alternative energy sources. This is causing quite exciting processes in the oil and gas sector of the economy itself. Some companies consider oil and gas to be outdated and are therefore reformatting their assets. Others believe that hydrocarbons will play a vital role in the energy sector for a long time to come, and therefore it is too early to write them off.

In the oil spill combat, border countries should have the same qualification, experience in working together. Such areas are everywhere where companies are working together. The next and probably, the most important point – the High North and the Arctic.

The most intensive technology development occurs in the field of solving problems of optimizing projects for the development of oil and gas fields, assessing the technical accessibility of territories and water areas and assessing the environmental consequences of the development of new territories and water areas, searching for new and optimizing existing drainage systems, creating new technologies for oil and gas production, methods and drilling techniques, multiphase fluid flow, pipeline diagnostics, etc.

Despite the adverse reaction of environmentalists to the exploration of oil and gas in the pristine regions of the Arctic, the companies continue to search for hydrocarbon resources beyond the Arctic Circle. Approaches of different countries and companies to the High North and Arctic resources development and new technology trends will be discussed in the Lecture.

Professor Jørgen Amdahl
Dept. of Marine Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), 
Center for Autonomous Marine Operation and Systems (AMOS)

Academic Profile: https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/jorgen.amdahl 

Keynote Lecture

Title: Assessment of structures subjected to abnormal water slamming  events

Abstract: Marine structures are often exposed to the risk of violent water impacts (slamming) where the incident waves are steep and energetic. Examples are bow flare impacts of container vessels, wet deck slamming of high speed vessels, green water on decks and water impact on deck structures due to sea floor subsidence. A tragic slamming incident occurred on the offshore drilling rig COSL Innovator 2015 which resulted in one fatality.

Traditionally extreme slamming are analyzed and designed for in the ultimate limit state (ULS), where it is assumed that the structure responds primarily in the elastic domain.  The coupling between the structural response and the hydrodynamic pressure matters, and hydro-elastic analysis methods for extreme slamming events have been well established.  For very rare, viz. abnormal slamming events, the structure may be pushed into the large deflection range causing significant permanent deformations. In these cases, it is necessary to resort to plastic analysis of the structural response in the accidental limit state (ALS), but the interaction with the hydrodynamic pressures should still be maintained.

 The presentation outlines the main ideas behind hydro-plastic analysis of stiffened plates subjected to abnormal slamming events. An analytic approach is developed, and the resulting nondimensional relationships may be used to design stiffened plating. The analytic response predictions are compared with results from nonlinear Arbritary Eulerian_Lagrangian (ALE) simulations. The starting point is analysis of drop tests of a single stiffener/plate against flat water at small impact angles. This is followed up by a simplified approach to analysis of a breaking wave impact, which also aims to determine the “minimum length” of a breaking wave to produce the permanent deformation. Finally, considerations of the response of complete stiffened panels are presented

Dr. Sophia Buckingham
von Karman Institute (VKI) for Fluid Dynamics, Belgium

Academic profile: Sophia Buckingham received in 2007 her Engineering Diploma from ESTACA in France, and continued with a Master Degree in Aeronautical Engineering at the Istanbul Technical University in Turkey. In 2009, she joined the Research Master at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics where she is currently Senior Research Engineer in the Environmental and Applied Fluid Dynamics Department since 2012. She obtained her PhD working in collaboration with UCLouvain on the investigation of Prandtl number effects in abruptly separated flows, combining wind tunnel tests and LES simulations. Her current areas of research include weather modeling, wind resource assessment, CFD modelling of wind farms flows and scaled wind tunnel testing of atmospheric boundary layer flows. She is leading the research projects at VKI related to weather prediction for the offshore wind energy sector, focusing on extreme weather events within the wind farm leading to extreme loading, rain erosion and lightning-driven damage of wind turbine blades

 Keynote Lecture

Title: Wind engineering for Belgian offshore wind farms
Abstract: VKI is involved in research related to the effect of extreme weather events on the operation and maintenance of the existing Belgian offshore wind farms close to Oostende. A long term measurement campaign aims to correlate weather to wind turbine health monitoring. The talk will reveal the importance of wind-wave misalignment for storm forecasting by WRF, validated by Lidar and Radar measurements and wind tunnel measurements that include a wave basin.

Bodil Pedersen
Senior surveyor, Department for Cargo Vessels and Mobile Offshore Units, 
Norwegian Maritime Authority

Academic profile: Senior adviser with work tasks including leader of NMAs internal forum for polar shipping, took part in the development of the polar code in IMO and in national group, Leads work with interpretations of the polar code among arctic states in PAME and Issuing polar code certificates to Norwegian flagged vessels

Keynote Lecture

Title: The Norwegian Maritime Authority's involvement in development of international Maritime Regulations with emphasis on Polar Regions

Abstract: The Norwegian Maritime Authority (NMA) is heavily  involved in the development of international maritime regulations in the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The adoption of the mandatory Polar Code by IMO was an important milestone in ensuring safe and sustainable shipping in the Arctic and Antarctic. Norway chaired the work on the development of the Polar Code and the develop of guidance on a methodology for determining limitations for operation in ice in IMO. In addition, Norway together with other member states of the IMO has taken a number of initiatives to help ensure a global and consistent implementation of the Code. The paper will present ongoing activities which at present are prioritized by NMA and give status for the work.