ANSYS Technical Innovations Conference News
This event is being held at Norris Conference Center in Houston, as an annual user event. Their keynote speakers were Ahmad Haidari, Global Energy Industry Director for ANSYSY and Khaled Elksheikh, VP of Marketing and Technology Artificial Lift for Schlumberger. Dr. Haidari spoke on “Convergence of Digital, Electrical and Autonomous Systems - Implications for the Energy Industry”, Mr. Elksheikh on “Modeling and Simulation for ESP (electrical submersible pumps): Component and System Optimization”.
Dr. Haidari’s intriguing slides began with an overview of four cross-industry technology disruptions: autonomous systems, engineered electrical systems, digitalization and additive manufacturing. He showed Gartner’s “blurring industries” slide that brings in new entrants, more competitors and death of some industries; driven by economic and demographic forces, technological and industry changes.
Particularly interesting is the electrification revolution. It is impacting mobility in transportation, ability to execute IIOT in manufacturing, and has been a disruptor in power generation. An oil & gas example is the electrification of fracking pumping power – using natural gas to generate power for battery-driven e-motors. Like an electric car, the power also supports system intelligence.
Historically, with easy to recover oil & gas, energy input into production recovered 100 times energy used: nowadays the global average net energy ratio is down to 10:1. In digitization, developments are coming quickly in machine-too-machine interaction with little or no human intervention required. Also, more use of simulation beyond the design phase. Design focusses on parameters such as cost, weight, efficiency and robustness. Using smart sensors in operating phase enables design improvement to be identified through information on equipment life, performance with diagnostics and optimization.
Like other firms in the energy space, ANSYS have also adopted Digital Twins to drive business outcomes. “A digital twin is a connected virtual replica of an in-service physical asset that mirrors and predicts its experience”.
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