JGC Japan Corporation (JGC) is a multi-faceted global business, headquartered in Yokohama, Japan. Empire supported JGC with their studies for offshore wind projects under development in Japan in order to reinforce their expertise and abilities in offshore wind.
JGC is a major international EPCI player in many fields, but so far specifically in oil and gas and increasingly in renewables as energy transition. The JGC team has been working for feasibility studies, conceptual designs, and basic engineering of offshore wind power projects, and as part of that, they looked into Empire Engineering to provide specialist engineering knowledge and advice.
Three leg concept design used for cost estimates
Part of the team
Empire sent a principal engineer to work with JGC in Yokohama for two months in 2019. Our engineer was based in JGC Yokohama main office in Japan to provide on-site assistance and as an interface to the wider experience of the Empire team based back in Europe.
Our Engineer flew over to Japan, quickly got set up with JGC and embedded himself as part of the day-to -day team at JGC. We started by casting his eye over the initial design and providing feedback and improvement suggestions based on our experience in European projects.
After this initial review had been completed, our Engineer provided professional input into a number of sub projects supporting those engineering studies. These included:
- Reviewing the grouted connection
- Creating Fatigue assessment
- Considering novel monopile design ideas to save weight
- Formulating a risk register
- Performing analytical checks on the dynamics of breaking wave loads
One key phase of the work was to produce a jacket concept design, including with cost estimates, for JGC to compare with current monopile design.
“Empire Engineering provided us with an excellent and responsive service, applying their knowledge and experience to answer any question we asked them.“
Shigeo MORIMURA , JGC Japan Corporation
Fostering a long term partnership
The JGC, Emipre relationship did with there. The wider Empire team continued with their assistance.
Empire Engineering was the stand out choice for JGC because of our combined collective experience, use of technology and similar values. Our engineer led a process that included automated design and analysis in SESAM, and his experience with jacket costing, covering fabrication, T&I etc proved incredibly valuable for the team at JGC.
The Empire team drew on our considerable experience from European projects to benefit Offshore Wind Farm in Japan when JGC delivering an engineering products for offshore wind farm in Japan.
We also successfully took on further responsibility, providing a non-linear time domain analysis of breaking wave loads to back-up the calculations of their Dynamic Amplification Factors (DAFs) from academic papers.
example of DAF overestimation
Technology as an enabler
Empire Engineering brought not just considerable engineering experience to the project, we also employed leading technology to automate and streamline processes. This included advanced Finite Element Analysis (FEA), drafting, MathCad, and yes good old Excel!
Empire’s recommendations
As a direct result of our work with JGC, improvements were made to the grouted connection design, Empire experience was incorporated in multiple areas, and JGC team produced a through consideration and comparison of jacket designs.
Key project summary
The results
The JGC, Empire Engineering relationship represents a successful long term international partnership. JGC had access to considerable offshore wind experience borne from many years’ experience.
JGC benefited from considerable European experience to assist with offshore wind power engineering and future EPCI execution.
We undertook the creation of a Jacket Concept design with detailed comparisons to the Monopile design.
We provided specialist technical support with breaking wave Dynamic Amplification Assessment.
