Nonlinear Static Finite Element Stress Analysis of Pipe-in-Pipe Risers

Owing to the complexity of the pipe-in-pipe (PIP) riser system in structure, load and restraint, many problems arise in the structural analysis of the system. This paper presents a new method for nonlinear static finite element stress analysis of the PIP riser system. The finite element (FE) model of the PIP riser system is built via software AutoPIPE 6.1. According to the specialties of a variety of components in the PIP riser system, different elements are used so as to model the system accurately. Allowing for the complication in modeling the effects of seabed restraint, a technique based on the bilinear spring concept is developed to calculate the soil properties. Then, based on a pipeline project, the entire procedure of stress analysis is discussed in detail, including creation of an FE model, processing of input data and analysis of results. A wide range of loading schemes is investigated to ascertain that the stresses remain within the acceptable range of the pipe material strength. Finally, the effects of the location of flanges, the thermal expansion of submarine pipelines and the seabed restraint on stress distribution in the riser and expansion loop are studied, which are valuable for pipeline designers.

Lateral buckling of non-trenched high temperature pipelines with pipelay imperfections

An analysis method for the buckling process of a pipe section with a random pipelay imperfection is proposed. Four basic lateral modes, acquired by finite-element （FE） eigenvalue buckling analysis, are combined to provide the needed grid configurations for describing a real pipelay imperfection and an arc-length algorithm is used to analyze the snap-through process of the shell-element-grid model under nonlinear frictional boundary conditions. This paper also presents evaluation methods for the lateral buckling of two types of pipe-in-pipe systems that are used in the offshore oil and gas industry. For evaluating the buckling and postbuckling of compliant pipe-in-pipe systems FE analyses were carried out to judge the occurrence of the system buckling and furthermore to check postbuckling stresses induced in the buckles. The calculated results of the modified Riks algorithm indicate that only when high temperature would not trigger an abrupt short-wavelength buckle and when no yielding has been induced in the unavoidable long-wavelength buckles, the thermal stability and safety of compliant pipe-in-pipe systems can be proved. In the non-compliant pipe-in-pipe systems, firstly small-amplitude buckles of the carrier pipe may occur in the annulus between carrier pipe and casing pipe and the contact forces between the spacers and the casing pipe may drive the buckle of the pipe-in-pipe systems on the seabed. Based on the classical analytical solution of pipe buckling, four potential buckling modes corresponding to finite- element models are developed to evaluate the stability and the postbuckling strength of such pipe-in-pipe systems.