Research areas in RAMS group

– Activities and research areas

The overall mission of the RAMS group is to contribute to safer, more productive and more sustainable industry, transport and society. The main topic of the group is risk and reliability assessment of complex systems.

Our contribution is made by providing RAMS research results and education at the highest possible level of quality. Based on this mission, our aim is:

To be recognized as an internationally leading research group on selected topics within the RAMS area, and to offer world-class education in RAMS.

These selected areas are:

Reliability assessment of safety-critical systems
RAMS engineering
Risk-based maintenance planning and management
Maintenance modeling and maintenance optimization
Risk assessment of complex technical systems

⇒ See also the RAMS group's Wiki-pages.

We have traditionally aimed to link development of theoretical models with practical applications. Key application areas have been oil and gas industry, including subsea facilities and systems, railway industry, and wind turbines. In all these areas, we have been and are linking the research to strategic projects. More recently, we have also added critical road infrastructures (like strait crossing bridges). It should be noted that our research does not focus on structural reliability, and area that is covered by other research groups at the NTNU.

Strategic projects

The most important ones at present are (list under construction):

Active involvement in PDS forum and related activities,including regular updates of the PDS method and PDS data handbooks.
Active involvement in and co-director of the Center for Subsea Production and Processing (SUBPRO).
Contributing to the RAMS management of strait crossing bridges and tunnels (collaboration project with The Norwegian Road Administration, and which is linked to the new Ferry free E-39 development).
Contributing in well risk assessment in Learning from successful operations, NFR funded project (Petromaks), lead by SINTEF Safety Research, involving NTNU, SINTEF and Safetec.

Previous strategic projects have been (list under construction):

Nowitech - Research Centre for Offshore Wind Technology
IO Center - Center for Integrated Operations in the Petroleum Industry
Joint industry projects, such as:
- OMT: Risk Modelling – Integration of Organizational, Human and Technical factors. Joint project involving SINTEF, Studio Apertura, Safetec, IFE and UiS.
Projects with funding from EU or international partners:
- MARINA: Marine Renewable Integrated Application Platform. EU project with 17 partners.
- RIO: Interdisciplinary Risk Assessment in Integrated Operations. Joint project involving NTNU, MINES ParisTech and SINTEF.
Other:
- Norwegian State Railways: Maintenance optimization for rolling stock.
- Petroleum Safety Authority: A range of projects during the last 10 years related to maintenance; the last (finalised in 2014) on the role of maintenance within barrier management.