Case Study: Foster Wheeler achieves rapid, high-quality mudmat design—cutting analysis time from weeks to days with Dassault Systemes (Abaqus)

Rigorous Analysis, Flexible Design Lead to Creation of Optimal Mudmats

Foster Wheeler needed to design custom plate mudmats that must meet strict stress and buckling requirements for offshore supports, but their manual process of extracting dozens of stresses and performing hand-calculated buckling checks was slow, error-prone, and limited iteration. To address this, Foster Wheeler developed Mudmatician and integrated it with Dassault Systemes' Abaqus FEA (using Abaqus APIs and Python scripting) to automate model generation and analysis.

Using Dassault Systemes' Abaqus as the simulation engine, Mudmatician automates meshing, load/boundary input transfer, extraction of panel stresses, and industry-code buckling checks, reporting utilization factors for quick assessment. The solution validated well against manual designs and cut analysis time from weeks or months to days, dramatically reducing man‑hours, lowering human-error risk, and enabling rapid redesign and even emergency service delivery for clients.

Foster Wheeler

Jinming Xu

Engineer