Seismic Monitoring and Alert

Earthquakes pose possible risks to several assets: among these, oil rigs and platforms are the most susceptible offshore structures. One easy way to face the impact of earthquakes on offshore structures is to check as soon as possible the intensity of an earthquake at site compared to platform seismic inputs used in design.

Traditionally, this problem would be solved by creating seismic alert maps for oil platforms located offshore, so that -given a specific magnitude and location- it would be possible to verify if the Peak Ground Acceleration at site may have exceeded a design threshold. However, this method would be time consuming and not always realistic.

How it works

The solution is our Seismic Monitoring application: it automatically retrieves near real-time earthquake reports from public websites (e.g. INGV, PEER, etc.) and it compares the prediction given by the Ground Motion Prediction Equation (GMPE) with the structure's critical threshold levels. If the threshold is exceeded, an automatic alert message is sent to the structure supervisors, highlighting potentially critical events for the structure.

Advantages

• Our Seismic Monitoring application is automatic and gives near-real time results
• It considers the full spectral shape -instead of PGA only
• It can consider also the local soil amplification effects, if the required inputs are available
• The structure's owner or manager does not have to put in place any intervention on the asset itself and has to face limited costs