I’m an engineer, but can appreciate the fact
that many problems can’t be solved with new technology or by solving an
equation. Since June, when I visited the ASME conference on Ocean, Offshore and
Arctic Engineering (OMAE 2013), I’ve been revisiting a thought several times:
In the opening speech to the arctic symposium
at the conference it was clearly stated that in arctic engineering everything
starts with the arctic operation. Without understanding the intended operation
there is no point in doing the engineering. This sounds very true and important
to understand…
But then the presentations started and none of
the ones I visited even reflected on the intended operation. Many presentations
discussed calculations in model scale and calibration with model tests and when
there were questions about agreement with the full scale situation everybody
said: “Don’t know, we don’t have any full scale data”.
So my impression from the conference (hope it’s
wrong) is that all over world there are a lot of researchers doing arctic
studies with the aim make arctic operations feasible (and risk assessment on
arctic operations) without validated relevant data. The excuse is that the full
scale tests needed are very expensive. But maybe the tests it is more worthwhile
than putting the money on research that can’t be validated?
No comments:
Post a Comment