Offshore Site Investigation and Geotechnics Conference 2017 (OSIG 2017) - Review

The Society for Underwater Technology (SUT) held the 8th Offshore Site Investigation & Geotechnics (OSIG) conference in September at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in London.

The OSIG is held every 5 years and is dedicated to offshore geotechnical engineering, site investigations, geohazards and geosciences.  It stands alongside the ISFOG (International Symposium on Frontiers in Offshore Geotechnics) as a highlight in the conference calendar.

This edition of the conference title was entitled “Smarter Solutions for Future Offshore Developments” with the following challenge in the call for papers:
 
“The challenges currently faced by the offshore oil & gas industry call for innovative approaches to improve efficiency and rigour in practice, while the offshore renewable energy industry has identified and addressed, through major research programmes, key technical issues that must be solved to support its growing strength. High profile international incidents have also occurred across all sectors in recent years that pose significant data acquisition, engineering and operational challenges.”

With this in mind it is interesting to note that this is first time that delegates from the renewables sector outnumbered those from oil & gas at the OSIG conference.

In addition to the 4th McClelland Lecture being delivered at the conference the following keynote papers were presented:

• Steve Thomas – Fugro Geoscience Technical Authority:​ A Phased And Integrated Data Interpretation Approach to Site Characterisation
• Justin Dix – Southampton University​: Substrate Controls on the Life-Time Performance of Marine HV Cables
• Byron Byrne – University of Oxford: PISA: New Design Methods for Offshore Wind Turbine Monopiles 
• Philippe Jeanjean – Geotechnical Technical Authority, BP​: A Framework for Monotonic p-y Curves in Clays
• Professor Barry Lehane – University of Western Australia​: Characteristics of Unified Databases for Driven Piles

The published proceedings (comprising 1323 pages) are split into 2 volumes and 12 sections including:

•  Vol 1;International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering - 4th McClelland lecture and keynote addresses (8), Geohazards & Geophysics (10), Geotechnical Site Investigation & Design (16), Advanced Soil Characterisation (10), Suction Installed Foundations (11)

• Vol 2; Pile Design and Installation (16), Subsea Shallow Foundations (14), Pipelines (11), Mooring Systems (13), Wind Turbine Foundations (14), Geotechnical Design Studies (13) and Case Studies (8).

 
Parallel presentation sessions were introduced in order to fit in a huge number of presentations and presentations times were kept short (5 min in the parallel sessions, which was described as a speed dating equivalent for geotechnical engineers).
 
A knovel approach to Q&A was available in plenary sessions where delegates could use a social media forum to submit questions during the presentations.  This has benefits and draw backs (with some delegates choosing to make anonymous questions or using fake names which takes away from the collaborative spirit of the event).  However, it probably encouraged more questions which is a positive if not making more work for session chairs.
 
​A few of the conference papers (in addition to the keynotes above) which best answer the challenge made in the call for papers, in my opinion are summarised below:

• D Rushton, L Jones, T Nott, M Rattley: Geospatial Analysis for Offshore Geotechnical Design

• S Frankenmolen, C Erbrich, R Fearon: Successful Installation of Large Suction Caissons and Driven Piles in Carbonate Soils

• S Abyaneh, A Maconochie, J Oliphant: The Undrained Capacity of Shallow Two-Foundation Systems Acting in Consort Under Three-Dimensional Loading

• R Wallerand, M Cafi , D Kay, P Dimmock, M Randolph: Hybrid Subsea Foundations – From Research to Project Application

• S Gourvenec, S Stanier, D White, N Morgan, M Banimahd, J Chen: Whole-Life Assessment of Subsea Shallow Foundation Capacity
• Low, M Ramm, MF Bransby, DJ White, ZJ Westgate: Effect of Through-Life Changes in Soil Strength and Axial Pipe-Seabed Resistance for HPHT Pipeline Design
• K Sassi, MY-H Kuo, H Versteele, DN Cathie, S Zehzouh: Insights into the Mechanisms of Anchor Chain Trench Formation​
• D Abadias, L Zdravkovic, D Taborda, D Potts: The Implications of Advanced Monopile Design Methodologies in Offshore Wind Turbines

• S Holm, R Klinkvort, N Boylan, W-E Semm, K Price, C Clausen: Back Analyses of Monopile Installation in North Sea Sands

The latter paper is one of the most informative pile driving papers that I've had the pleasure to read providing a good summary of traditional SRD prediction models, an NGI model and a comparison against back analysed field data.

Over the course of the 3 days there were some excellent presentations and there are of course many other fantastic papers.  A great event and we look forward to the next one in 5 years time.