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US 10,515,426 B2Granted
Method for estimating a characteristic of a liquefied natural gas load
AssigneeEngie
InventorsFrederic Legrand, Benoit Portannier, Yacine Zellouf, Laurent Benoit
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of estimating a characteristic (Qn′, Q1′) of a load of liquefied natural gas being transported by a tanker at any point on a route (401, P; 501, 502, 503), the method being characterized in that the estimation is made by integrating, over the route (410, 411, 412, 420; 510, 511, 512) from a reference point (400, P; 500) at which said characteristic is known (Qn, Ql), a relationship associating the instantaneous transformation of the load with instantaneous navigation conditions.
Claims23
A method of routing a gas tanker comprising:
- defining a plurality of pre-selected sea routes;
- receiving, at a computer tool, instantaneous navigation conditions associated with the gas tanker, wherein the instantaneous navigation conditions comprise a state of the sea, a speed of advance of the gas tanker, and a state of the atmosphere;
- for each pre-selected sea route, estimating, by the computer tool, a composition and a quantity of a load of liquefied natural gas being transported by the gas tanker at an estimation point on the sea route, wherein the estimating comprises:
- determining, over the sea route from a reference point at which the composition and the quantity are known to the estimation point, a relationship associating an instantaneous transformation of the composition and quantity of the load of liquefied natural gas with the instantaneous navigation conditions, wherein the instantaneous transformation of the composition and quantity of the load of liquefied natural gas is caused by evaporation and formation of boil-off gas;
- and
- selecting a tanker route from the plurality of pre-selected sea routes that provides at least one of a best estimated composition or a greatest estimated quantity of the load of liquefied natural gas at the estimation point;
- wherein the relationship associating the instantaneous transformation of the composition and quantity of the load of liquefied natural gas with the instantaneous navigation conditions is extracted from an experience database to associate the quantity and composition of a remaining load of liquefied natural gas to the instantaneous navigation conditions.
4 more elements
A computer-implemented device for routing a gas tanker comprising:
- a computer tool configured to:
- receive a plurality of pre-selected sea routes;
- receive instantaneous navigation conditions associated with the gas tanker, wherein the instantaneous navigation conditions comprise a state of the sea, a speed of advance of the gas tanker, and a state of the atmosphere;
- for each pre-selected sea route, estimate a composition and a quantity of a load of liquefied natural gas being transported by the gas tanker at an estimation point on the sea route;
- and
- select a tanker route from the plurality of pre-selected sea routes that provides at least one of a best estimated composition or a greatest estimated quantity of the load of liquefied natural gas;
- wherein, to estimate the composition and the quantity of the load of liquefied natural gas for each pre-selected sea route, the computer tool is configured to:
- determine, over the sea route from a reference point at which the composition and the quantity are known to the estimation point, a relationship associating an instantaneous transformation of the composition and quantity of the load of liquefied natural gas with the instantaneous navigation conditions, wherein the instantaneous transformation of the composition and quantity of the load of liquefied natural gas is caused by evaporation and formation of boil-off gas;
- and
- wherein the relationship associating the instantaneous transformation of the composition and quantity of the load of liquefied natural gas with the instantaneous navigation conditions is extracted from an experience database to associate the quantity and composition of a remaining load of liquefied natural gas to the instantaneous navigation conditions.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.