Civil Engineering and Architecture 9(6): 2062-2076, 2021 http://www.hrpub.org
DOI: 10.13189/cea.2021.090634
Multi-Nozzle Abrasive Water Jet for Oil and Gas
Platforms Decommissioning: A Review
Wesam Salah Alaloul
1
, Muhammad Ali Musarat
1,*
, Lim Eu Shawn
1
, Ahmad Mahamad Al-Yacouby
1
,
Iraj Toloue
1
, Waqas Rafiq
2
, Waqas Farooq
3
1
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia
2
Department of Civil Engineering, COMSATS University Islamabad Wah Campus, Pakistan
3
Department of Electrical Engineering, Sarhad University of Science & Information Technology Peshawar, Pakistan
Received July 7, 2021; Revised August 23, 2021; Accepted September 21, 2021
Cite This Paper in the following Citation Styles
(a): [1] Wesam Salah Alaloul, Muhammad Ali Musarat, Lim Eu Shawn, Ahmad Mahamad Al-Yacouby, Iraj Toloue,
Waqas Rafiq, Waqas Farooq, "Multi-Nozzle Abrasive Water Jet for Oil and Gas Platforms Decommissioning: A Review,"
Civil Engineering and Architecture, Vol. 9, No. 6, pp. 2062-2076, 2021. DOI: 10.13189/cea.2021.090634.
(b): Wesam Salah Alaloul, Muhammad Ali Musarat, Lim Eu Shawn, Ahmad Mahamad Al-Yacouby, Iraj Toloue, Waqas
Rafiq, Waqas Farooq (2021). Multi-Nozzle Abrasive Water Jet for Oil and Gas Platforms Decommissioning: A Review.
Civil Engineering and Architecture, 9(6), 2062-2076. DOI: 10.13189/cea.2021.090634.
Copyright©2021 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License
Abstract Decommissioning offshore platforms
present unique safety and health challenges to the oil and
gas industry. In the Malaysian waters, there are over 300
fixed jacket platforms, and most of them exceeded the
design service life of 25 to 30 years. One of the key
challenges that determine the method of removal of aged
jacket platforms is subsea cutting techniques. As
underwater cutting is a challenging and expensive task, it is
very much essential to develop cost-effective cutting
techniques for decommissioning fixed jacket platforms.
Thus, the objective of this paper is to present the state of art
on Abrasive Water Jet (AWJ) cutting techniques by
identifying the most significant parameters affecting the
performance output measures for decommissioning of
Jacket platforms applications. As the cutting process is
very complex and times consuming tasks, the paper
identifies research gaps and recommends new research
areas in Multi Nozzles Abrasive Water Jet (MN-AWJ) for
decommissioning applications. Many parameters are
affecting the performance of AWJ that is why an in-depth
critical review was adopted in this manuscript to determine
the most significant parameters that need to be considered
in the optimization of AWJ performance.
Keywords Abrasive Waterjet Technology, Erosion,
Machining Processes, Material Cutting, MN-AWJ
1. Introduction
The power of water and its erosive effect has been
serving the mankind for hundreds of years especially in the
Roman Empire [1, 2]. The ancient Egyptians used sand
combined with water for mining and cleaning.
High-pressure water has been used for cutting in both
forestry and mining. Abrasive waterjet is a manufacturing
technique in which a high-pressure water stream mixed
with hard particles removes material from a given object
due to collision impact loads. This method is beneficial for
processing hard or composite materials for engineering
applications. The abrasive water jet system was applied for
the first time in the United States. Modern industrial
application of water jet technology was developed and get
patented the concept of a high-pressure water jet cutting
system in 1968 [3].
1.1. Abrasive Water Jet
Abrasive water jet (AWJ) is a processing method that
has been used and widely adopted in the industry for
cutting ductile materials such as aluminum, steel, alloys as
well as brittle materials such as stone, concrete and ceramic
[4, 5]. The AWJ machining techniques are also used in a
variety of applications namely for milling, polishing,
drilling, and turning [6]. Abrasive jet machining is a
nontraditional machine process that operates without