How we can help
Empire is dedicated to projects that involve fixed and floating support structures in offshore wind.
We have three core services:
Early Stage Design
Empire delivers early stage foundation design for fixed and floating Offshore Wind structures.
For Offshore Wind developers, the early stage design process significantly influences the whole project life cycle.
Our Early Stage Design process effectively shapes your project’s direction. We can help you with:
Concept design, Basic design, pre-FEED (Front End Engineering Design) and FEED level design
We understand that early stage design terminology varies across the industry. With our deep knowledge and broad experience, we’ll collaborate with you to define and scope your project in your terms, to fit your project needs.
Empire have spent over a decade developing state of the art in-house tools and proprietary code that allow us to efficiently deliver highly optimised structures specifically for your project.
Based upon the maturity of your project inputs, we will bring the right engineering effort and expertise to deliver the results you need. We can deliver high level desktop assessments through to fully integrated load analysis (ILA) and everything in-between.
At the concept stage, we will determine the preferred foundation type for your project, allowing your project to make good strategic decisions around fabrication and T&I methodologies. As we progress through more advanced stage of design, we will provide steadily more accurate weights and costs for the foundations to inform your budgets and business case.
Talk with a specialist
Start your project off on the right footing with expert Early Stage planning and advice.
Email Eleni about your Early Stage design
Eleni Minga, Structural Engineer and Fathom Lead
Owner’s Engineer
The increased global pace of the offshore wind industry has put pressure on developers to service their growing portfolio of projects.
This growth has brought its own challenges with skilled, experienced people in-demand. The developer is faced with potentially difficult decisions about how to deploy people to ensure each project is delivered successfully.
Empire provides an Owner’s Engineer service which gives your project access to an industry leading team of offshore wind foundations specialists. These skills are delivered both on a secondment basis, as well as by an engineering back office providing a depth of project experience and state of the art tools.
We bring a wealth of project experience, engineering tools, and back office support to boost the performance of your internal team.
Talk with a specialist
Lean into our collective experience and capabilities for that additional project boost, just when you need it most.
Email Nick about our Owner’s Engineer service
Nick Howard, Partner, Principal Engineer
Specialist Engineering
Our Specialist Engineering services combine the strength of our engineering, computing and software resources to overcome the toughest challenges. With our expert team, cutting-edge tools and deep knowledge gained from diverse and complex projects, we’re ready to solve a variety of problems.
Empire provides both proactive, and or reactive services that cover the entire project lifecycle from Early Stage project development to fabrication, Transport and Installation (T&I) and operations, through to life extension.
Types of specialist services we can provide:
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Transport and Installation (T&I) planning and detailedanalysis
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Structural health monitoring (SHM) advice and analysis
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Installation guide design
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MP-TP connection detailed analysis and design
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Grouted connection design and analysis
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New technology evaluation
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Asset management and life extension
Empire provides Specialist Engineering services for both fixed and floating wind projects. Our team can provide advice on specialist services during planning, or respond rapidly at critical moments through all project phases.
Talk with a specialist
Our team can provide the expertise required to keep projects on track and provide effective solutions when challenges occur.
Email Karl about Specialist Engineering
Karl Davis, Managing Director
Downloadable brochures
Learn more about Empire Engineering’s capabilities
Tools we use
Empire only uses the industry-leading products to perform our work. We keep in-house a specialist suite of software, which allows us to perform a wide range of assessments and analyses. This includes Fathom, our custom designed tool for assessing hydrodynamic loading on structures.
If you have unique technical requirements, our engineers will be happy to adapt.
Foundations Concept and Tender Design
FATHOM is an in-house code we’ve written for assessing hydrodynamic loading on structures, and performing ULS and FLS strength checks. We’ve coded it ourselves so it’s hugely flexible and fully customisable for our Clients needs.
Finite Element Analysis
When problems exceed the capabilities of hand calculations, or a higher level of accuracy is required, we use the ANSYS suite of analysis tools. We have the capability and experience to perform complicated non-linear static and transient analyses.
Offshore Operations Analysis
When more complex hydrodynamic modelling is required, or when structural engineering is strongly coupled with naval architecture, a comprehensive tool is what you need. OrcaFlex is our go-to software in the analysis of offshore operations, floating structures, mooring lines and submarine cables. We also use it for Wind Turbine simulations in Integrated Loads Assessment processes.
Computer Aided Design
For 3D modeling of components and assemblies as well as engineering drawing production we maintain licenses of Solidworks, Inventor and AutoCAD. We like to think there isn’t much we can’t design with these tools, but if you prefer a different flavour of CAD, our designers are only too happy to switch their hand to CATIA, Pro/E or even Google Sketchup.
Numerical Analysis
For detailed numerical analysis, post processing of turbine loads data and reviewing accelerometer or strain gauge data we are big fans of Matlab.
Project Management
There are many tools available to assist with Project Management. Our package of choice is MS Project as its great for maintaining a good overview of a project.
