CEETRON Powerful 3D Visualization and Experience helps SINTEF Ocean Provide for Their Customers

SINTEF Ocean conducts research in the areas of aquaculture, marine environmental technology, fisheries technology, maritime transport, renewable energy, oil & gas, and biomarine processing. SINTEF Ocean is part of the SINTEF Group, which is a broad, multidisciplinary research organization with leading expertise in the fields of technology, the natural sciences, medicine and the social sciences. They conduct contract R&D for the private and public sectors, and are one of the largest contract research institutions in Europe.

CEETRON was incorporated in 1996 as a spin-off from SINTEF. Ever since, both entities have worked closely on a large number of SINTEF projects, including SimVis for marine operations, USFOS for collapse analysis, and LINKftr for fracture mechanics simulations in offshore pipelines. CEETRON and SINTEF have also conducted a number of joint R&D projects, including SINTEF Digital (Direct Visualization in the Cloud, integrated CAD and Analysis), and SINTEF Technology and Society (Mariana, see separate story). Here is the story about USFOS:

USFOS is SINTEF Ocean’s software product in the area of collapse analysis of jackets, top-sides, jack-ups and other frame structures, intact or damaged. The software accurately simulates the collapse process, from the initial yielding, through to the formation of a complete collapse mechanism and the final structural response of the structure.

USFOS was developed around year 2000 by SINTEF Ocean (former MARINTEK) and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology through JIPs sponsored by operators and engineering companies. Key members of the team were Prof. Jørgen Amdahl, Dr. Tore Holmås, Dr. Øyvind Hellan and Dr. Ernst Eberg.

SINTEF Ocean wanted to extend USFOS with a pre- and post-processor, later to be called Xact, and CEETRON was tasked with the development work. Xact was built using GLview 3D Visualization API. When CEETRON was acquired by Tech Soft 3D, the partnership between SINTEF Ocean and CEETRON products continued, and does to this day.

World-wide marketing and sales of USFOS is done jointly by SINTEF Ocean and DNV Digital solutions, part of DNV, one of the largest ship classification societies globally, with 400 offices and 16,000 employees worldwide.

Today USFOS licenses are being used by all or most major operators and engineering companies working in the field.

Industry:

Marine

Solution:

CEETRON's 3D Visualization and industry-relevant experience support SINTEF's needs

Results:

Integrating non-core technology (3D visualization) from a global leader

43% of employees with doctoral degrees, compared with SINTEF's 42% of employees with doctoral degrees

Natural industry partner for SINTEF when applying for R&D funds from national or European funding schemes