MONAMOOR faces

The MONAMOOR project aims to develop tools for modelling the mechanical behaviour of nylon fibre anchor lines and long-term monitoring instruments suitable for floating systems. The skills and profiles to carry out this work are varied. The floor is given to the different people in our team working on MONAMOOR to describe their background, their role in the project and how they interact.

Guillaume DAMBLANS
Expert in fluid-structure interactions
France Energies Marines, Brest (29)

After an initial training in fluid mechanics and applied mathematics at the Ecole Centrale de Nantes, Guillaume worked for a year for the SBM Offshore company. He analysed the hydrodynamic behaviour of LNG tankers moored to a torque during the unloading phase. He then spent ten years at Principia, an engineering firm specialising in the energy and maritime sectors. He worked on numerous studies related to the oil sector, defence, and marine renewable energy. Guillaume acquired a solid knowledge and a recognized expertise in fluid-structure interactions, hydrodynamics, instability, and resonance phenomena related to anchors, export hoses and risers of floating hydrocarbon production, storage and offloading units called FPSOs. In parallel, he is working on three marine renewable energy recovery technologies. Guillaume is interested in Naval Energies’ marine thermal energy demonstrator, on the design of the barge mooring and the water pipe system for which he specified, monitored, and analysed a tank test campaign. During the development of the Windflow wind turbine, he was involved in the hydrodynamic modelling of the float. On the tidal turbine side, he carried out a stability study of the OpenHydro system during the installation phase.

In June 2016, Guillaume was recruited by France Energies Marines as head of the R&D programme which focuses on the design and in-service monitoring of ORE systems. His first mission was to ensure the submission of four collaborative projects in a few weeks, in conjunction with his colleague. He then took over the coordination and some technical tasks within projects on various topics: biofouling (ABIOP), polyamide mooring lines (POLYAMOOR), cyclic loadings of monopiles (SOLCYP+), cable stability in a tidal environment (STHYF), design method and prediction of the life span of dynamic cables (OMDYN and OMDYN2).

In 2020, he contributed to the setting up of the MONAMOOR project which he then coordinated until June 2022. In parallel, he is working on several technical tasks: first steps of the design of a demonstrator equipped with a hybrid semi-tensioned mooring and sensors and use of the visco-elasto-plastic characterisation law of nylon resulting from POLYAMOOR. Guillaume also follows the work of Laure Civier, a PhD student, and was the co-supervisor of two post-doctoral researchers who have completed their contracts: Romain Grangeat, at the Université de Nantes, on the in-service monitoring strategy, and Cédric Bain, at ENSTA Bretagne and Ifremer, on the characterisation of internal behaviour.

Romain RIBAULT
Mooring systems and offshore monitoring research engineer
France Energies Marines, Brest (29)

Romain has always been passionate about the sea and sailing, even though he grew up in the Paris region. After completing his scientific studies and obtaining his engineering degree from the Ecole Centrale de Nantes, he began his professional career as a project manager for information systems. Seconded to Tegaz, he was in charge of the design, testing and deployment of new functionalities for consumption forecasting and gas contract pricing tools for industrial customers. He was then recruited by Technip as an engineer for the installation of subsea pipelines, hoses and umbilicals. Most of his time was spent preparing for the installation of flexible pipelines by construction vessels to connect wellheads at a depth of 1,000m with floating oil and gas extraction, storage, and offloading platforms. He has the opportunity to go on board regularly for field coordination where his role is to provide technical assistance to the person in charge of the offshore work. After five years spent on this type of project, he moved on to R&D assignments. For example, he contributed to the development of a prototype pipeline inspection system. But the desire to live near the sea was becoming increasingly strong. During a training course offered by WEAMEC on moorings, Romain discovered with interest the activities of France Energies Marines. A month later, he applied when the Institute opened an engineering position on mooring design and offshore operations. In May 2019, a few weeks after his recruitment, he moved to Brittany with his family.

Romain then took over the coordination of the MHM-EMR project, which focuses on the in-service monitoring of mooring systems. Then, within the framework of the MONAMOOR project, he was involved in the sea trials, the objective of which was to validate the nylon mooring prototypes as well as the associated sensors and long-term monitoring tools, in an environment close to a floating wind turbine. His first task was to carry out a pre-design study of the buoy for the mooring system demonstrator. He then specified and selected some sensors for the demonstrator, in particular tension sensors for the mooring lines. Then, he designed and contributed to the programming of the data acquisition system for all the sensors. This data acquisition system is part of a wider initiative initiated within France Energies Marines. The aim is to develop software for mooring monitoring, but also to standardise the field data collected during the various R&D projects carried out by the Institute. This data can then be easily used to train artificial intelligence models to enhance physical models such as a floating wind turbine simulator or a wind forecasting model.

Laure CIVIER
PhD student in monitoring of polyamide mooring lines for offshore wind turbines
ENSTA Bretagne, France Energies Marines and Ifremer, Brest (29)

Having always been fascinated by the ocean, Laure began high school with the desire to study marine biology and sharks. She then chose a scientific course of study. After various discussions with her entourage, and appreciating mathematics and physics, she finally opted for a more generalist course of study in materials science and engineering at the INSA in Lyon. Her final year internship was at Naval Group where she studied materials and the damping of hollow structures. Her supervisors encouraged her to pursue a thesis, which she finally decided to do. When she typed the words “thesis”, “materials” and “offshore” into a search engine, the first result that appeared on her screen was the offer made in the framework of the MONAMOOR project. Laure applied, was selected, and started her PhD in November 2020.

Her thesis, which concerns the development of a model of rope behaviour, is structured in two parts. The first involves laboratory tests at Ifremer, under the supervision of Peter Davies. The second, carried out at ENSTA Bretagne, concerns structural modelling work, under the supervision of Guilhem Bles and Yann Marco. The results obtained will be compared with in situ data collected using a measuring buoy equipped with a hybrid semi-tensioned anchor and various sensors. The aim is to understand how the anchor line dissipates energy to better predict long-term fatigue. The design and upcoming deployment of the buoy in the Mediterranean is being managed by Jean-Sébastien Verjut, Guillaume Damblans and Romain Ribault of France Energies Marines.

This very rich thesis corresponds completely to Laure’s aspirations in terms of scientific and technical content. At the beginning, she still had to get used to the very mechanically oriented approach of her host laboratories, which is quite different from the one she learned during her studies. And being on several sites requires a lot of organisation to ensure that the two aspects of his research progress in sync. But living by the ocean is priceless…

Jean-Sébastien VERJUT
Mooring systems and marine operations research engineer
France Energies Marines, Brest (29)

After studying naval architecture and offshore engineering at ENSIETA in Brest, Jean-Sébastien was recruited by APL, a company specialising in innovative mooring systems for offshore oil and gas vessels. Based in Norway, France and the United States, he was involved at several levels concerning moorings, risers and umbilicals: analysis of meteorological and oceanic data, feasibility study, specification and design of systems according to the sites, contract clarification, monitoring of the manufacture of components and installation at sea.

After 13 years of loyal service, Jean-Sébastien left to work in the Netherlands for The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit foundation that develops solutions to clean the oceans of plastic. In the engineering department, he participates in the design and is in charge of hydrodynamic calculations to verify the shape and seakeeping of the different prototypes of passive drifting barriers, while taking part in sea trials.

Wishing to return to live in France, while continuing to evolve in the offshore industry, he applied to France Energies Marines for a position as an engineer in mooring design and offshore operations. He finally joined the Institute in January 2021. Initially, Jean-Sébastien took over from Guillaume Damblans on the part of the MONAMOOR project’s offshore demonstrator designed to validate the tools and models previously developed with representative offshore tests. This demonstrator takes the form of a 7-tonne buoy, equipped with a hybrid chain-nylon mooring and numerous sensors, which makes it a rather atypical device. At the time of writing, the buoy has been delivered, the chains and mooring rods are being delivered and the nylon lines are being assembled. In order to launch the demonstrator at the Mistral test site in the Mediterranean, Jean-Sébastien and his colleagues had to ensure that a certain number of legislations were respected and establish a file that will be examined by the local nautical commission at the end of September. After a handover period with Guillaume, the coordination of MONAMOOR has just been entrusted to him. Jean-Sébastien is also involved in other projects led by France Energies Marines, related to mooring and offshore operations.

Photo credit: France Energies Marines