Certification By Simulation: Learnings From Early Adopters

An Example Of Where Confidence In Simulation Based Certification Has Been Eroded Over Time, And What Steps Must Be Taken To Improve Confidence In Future

Thursday, 15 January 2026 | Online

07:00 (Los Angeles) | 10:00 (New York)
15:00 (London) | 16:00 (Berlin)

This webinar is being held as p​art of the ASSESS Certification theme.

With an increasing focus on the potential use of simulation based methods for certification in industry, this event shares an example of where confidence in CFD based methods has been eroded over time. Following the Piper Alpha incident in 1988, CFD has been increasingly used to support the safety case for oil and gas installations, both onshore and offshore in the UK and around the world. Specifically, the probabilistic approach has been used for explosion risk assessments following the first publication of the NORSOK Z 013 Standard in 2001. However, this standard is not prescriptive and for a probabilistic assessment where several hundred or thousand individual dispersion and explosion events may be simulated, the devil is in the detail of how the individual events are selected, simulated, and eventually compiled to produce the exceedance data required for the safety case and the design of the asset. Inevitably this can lead to user uncertainty: give X different parties the same asset to consider and you'll receive X different predictions for the explosion loads.

This uncertainty was recognised in the Norwegian sector as early as the 1990's and to explore this, a blind benchmark exercise was undertaken so that the level of uncertainty could be understood. Differences in the approaches adopted between the participants were identified and, as a result of the study, a consistent approach was developed. This approach served the Norwegian sector well for many years, but now it is evident that some of the original participants have deviated from the agreed approach in the pursuit of a better method. Meanwhile, in the UK and other jurisdictions around the world, a blind comparison exercise was never undertaken, so there has been no attempt to understand this level of user uncertainty. The consequence of this is that now, after they have been in use for almost a quarter of a century, confidence in CFD based methods has been eroded to the extent that in the Norwegian sector at least, there is a shift away from CFD in favour of a simpler look up approach based upon historical data (RispEx: https://www.fabig.com/publications-and-videos/online-lectures-webinars/webinar-016/).

The offshore sector was an early adopter of certification by simulation for explosion risk, and this erosion of trust and corresponding shift away from CFD-based methods has important lessons that should be shared with other industrial sectors considering how to approach certification by simulation in their own field. Specifically, the process for achieving confidence in simulation based methods should be fully understood. This webinar presents five key aspects, all of which relate to better understanding and, where possible, controlling uncertainties:

1. Develop mature processes: embed best practice within a workflow approach.
2. Competence: training and accreditation for both simulation users and simulation codes/workflows.
3. Improve confidence through blind benchmarking: blind benchmarking is the true test of any simulation approach.
4. How to interpret the simulation predictions: absolute or relative criteria.
5. Standard templates for certification using simulation: improve familiarity and set expectations.

A​genda

Welcome & Introduction
Jo Potts, NAFEMS

Certification By Simulation: Learnings from Early Adopters
Steve Howell, Abercus

Q&A Session
Attendees

O​ur Presenter ...

Steve Howell is Technical Director at Abercus

A Chartered Engineer with a wide range of experience in the oil-and-gas and built-environment sectors.

Fifteen years of experience of using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), both commercially available codes for industrial applications and the design and development of bespoke CFD codes.