The following is an excerpt.

Professor Marysilvia Costa from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil recently visited SIMLab. She was accompanied by research colleagues Aynor Ariza and Geovanio Lima.

The university in Rio collaborates with Statoil in much the same way as SFI CASA does and the researchers were particularly interested in learning more about flexible subsea lines, models and material parameters.

 

Mandatory

In Brazil, every oil company must spend a fixed percentage of their income on research. The program Costa, Ariza and Lima are part of, is a two year study. Because of Statoil’s partnership, the three had expected a visit to Norway, but not so soon. Halfway through the week-long programme they were very satisfied with the outcome:

“Everyone has been very nice and helping.”

The researchers also hope to establish some kind of collaboration with SFI CASA. During their three days at SIMLab, they worked primarily with researcher Egil Fagerholt and senior engineer Trond Auestad on matters of common interest.

 

Introduction to DIC

“As part of the cooperation with Statoil, our Brazilian colleagues have received a digital image correlation (DIC) system from us. They will use this system both in their work for Statoil, but also in their own research.

Their visit with us was primarily to give them a hands-on course in DIC, both in the use of the camera system and in the analysis of experimentally recorded image series.

Their interest in further cooperation is mutual and we have applied for funds together with Statoil and others to enable this,” Fagerholt says.

 

Guest lecture

Professor Costa gave a guest lecture during the stay. It ranged from her field of research, polymers, to information about Brazil and the upcoming Olympics in her home town of Rio de Janeiro.