Buckling Properties of a Subsea Function Chamber for Oil/Gas Processing in Deep Waters

Due to the complexity of installations and connections of subsea production equipment and the massive structures involved in a challenging environment,the failure of subsea production equipment could induce enormous loss to the safety and reliability of structures in addition to the cost of the oilfield development.One of the challenges that the subsea production structures face,as it moves to ultra-deep water and polar underwater equipment,is to design subsea shell structures capable of withstanding high external pressures.Hence,a subsea function chamber(SFC)has been lately proposed as a viable solution,which has a high level of safety and reliability,and a technique for the subsea production system.This paper presents a general and efficient buckling and collapse analysis strategy.In this work,the SFC is composed of cylindrical and hemispherical shaped steel material.Initial imperfection-based nonlinear buckling analysis has been carried out to investigate the buckling and risks associated with different thicknesses of the structure.Linear and nonlinear static buckling analyses have been carried out using ABAQUS software.By introducing the nonlinear properties of materials,the nonlinear numerical model of SFC is established.The effects of the thickness of differentmodels and the number of stiffeners on the bucklingmodes are discussed.The wall thickness is calculated by the Donnell equation and Timoshenko’s classical method.It has been found that the classical solutions given by the Donnell and Timoshenko equations are more accurate for structures with larger lengths and diam.The thickness and number of stiffeners have a great influence on the ultimate buckling external pressure load of SFC structure.

A rigid-flexible coupling finite element model of coupler for analyzing train instability behavior during collision

Rail vehicles generate huge longitudinal impact loads in collisions.If unreasonable matching exists between the compressive strength of the intermediate coupler and the structural strength of the car body,the risk of car body structure damage and train derailment will increase.Herein,a four-stage rigid-flexible coupling finite element model of the coupler is established considering the coupler buckling load.The influence of the coupler buckling load on the train longitudinal-vertical-hori-zontal buckling behavior was studied,and the mechanism of the train horizontal buckling instability in train collisions was revealed.Analysis results show that an intermediate coupler should be designed to ensure that the actual buckling load is less than the compressive load when the car body structure begins to deform plastically.The actual buckling load of the coupler and the asymmetry of the structural strength of the car body in the lateral direction are two important influencing factors for the lateral buckling of a train collision.If the strength of the two sides of the car body structure in the lateral direction is asymmetrical,the deformation on the weaker side will be larger,and the end of the car body will begin to deflect under the action of the coupler force,which in turn causes the train to undergo sawtooth buckling.

PERTURBATION ANALYSIS FOR MAGNETO-PLASTIC INSTABILITY OF FERROMAGNETIC BEAM-PLATES WITH GEOMETRIC IMPERFECTION

The magneto-plastic instability of a ferromagnetic beam-type plate with simple supports and small initial imperfection is analytically investigated in this paper for that the plastic deformation of the plate with a linear-strain hardening relation is considered when the plate is located in a strong uniformly distributed magnetic ?eld. After the distribution of magnetic ?elds related to the de?ected con?guration of plate is imaginably divided into two parts, i.e., one is related to the ?at plate and the other dependent on the perturbation of magnetic ?elds for which the plate con?guration changes from the ?at into the deformed state, the perturbation technique is employed to analyze the distribution of the perturbation magnetic ?elds in and out-of the magnetic medium of the ferromagnetic structure in a transverse magnetic ?eld, which leads to some analytical formulae/solutions for the magnetic ?elds and the resulting magnetic force exerted on the plate. Based on them, the magneto-plastic buckling and snapping of the plate in a transverse magnetic ?eld is discussed, and the critical magnetic ?eld is analytically formulated in terms of the parameters of geometry and material of the plate employed by solving the governing equation of the magneto-plastic plate in the applied magnetic ?eld. Further, the sensitivity of the initial imperfection on the magneto-plastic instability, expressed by an ampli?cation function, is obtained by solving the dynamic equation of de?ection of the plate after the inertial force in the transverse direction is taken into account. The results obtained show that the critical magnetic ?eld is sensitive to the plastic characteristic, e.g., hardening coe?cient, and the instability mode and de?ection of the plate are dependent on the geometrical imperfection as well.

Design optimization of composite egg-shaped submersible pressure hull for minimum buoyancy factor

This paper describes a design optimization study of the composite egg-shaped submersible pressure hull employing optimization and finite element analysis(FEA)tools as a first attempt to provide an optimized design of the composite egg-shaped pressure hull for manufacturing or further investigations.A total of 15 optimal designs for the composite egg-shaped pressure hull under hydrostatic pressure are obtained in terms of fibers’angles and the number of layers for 5 lay-up arrangements and 3 unidirectional(UD)composite materials.The optimization process is performed utilizing a genetic algorithm and FEA in ANSYS.The minimization of the buoyancy factor eB:FT is selected as the objective for the optimization under constraints on both material failure and buckling strength.Nonlinear buckling analysis is conducted for one optimal design considering both geometric nonlinearity and imperfections.A sensitivity study is also conducted to further investigate the influence of the design variables on the optimal design of the egg-shaped pressure hull.

JUMPING INSTABILITIES IN THE POST-BUCKLING OF A BEAM ON A PARTIAL NONLINEAR FOUNDATION

Mode jumping is an instability phenomenon in the post-buckling region, which causes a sudden change in the equilibrium configuration and is thus harmful to structure. The con- figuration of a partial elastic foundation can directly induce mode coupling from the buckling stage and through the whole post-buckling region. The mode coupling effect due to the configuration of partial foundation on mode jumping is investigated and demonstrated to be an important factor of determining mode jumping. By properly choosing the partial elastic foundation configuration, mode jumping can be avoided.

Notch Flexure as Kirigami Cut for Tunable Mechanical Stretchability towards Metamaterial Application

Kirigami is an art of paper cutting,which can be used in mechanical metamaterials,actuators,and energy absorption based on its deployable and load-deflection characteristics.Traditional cuts with zero width produce undesirable plastic deformation or even tear fracture due to stress concentration in stretching.This study proposes to enlarge the cut width into a notch flexure,which is applied to an orthogonality-cutted kirigami sheet,which buckles out of plane into a 3D configuration patterns under uniaxial tension.The use of compliant beam as the notch makes the stress distribution around the cuts more uniform in both elastic and elastoplastic regime.The experimental and numerical results show that by tuning the geometric parameters of cuts and material properties of the sheets,the trigger condition of 3D patterns can be adjusted.Potential capability of tunable phononic wave propagation in this kirigami-inspired metamaterial is demonstrated.This design methodology offers a theoretical guide for kirigami-based structures.