Nonlinear Analysis of Flexible and Steel Catenary Risers with Internal Flow and Seabed Interaction Effects

Flexible risers and steel catenary risers often provide unique riser solutions for today’s deepwater field development. Accurate analysis of these slender structures, in which there are high-speed HP/HT internal flows, is critical to ensure personnel and asset safety. In this study, a special global coordinate-based FEM rod model was adopted to identify and quantify the effects of internal flow and hydrostatic pressure on both flexible and deepwater steel catenary risers, with emphasis on the latter. By incorporating internal flow induced forces into the model, it was found that the internal flow contributes a new term to the effective tension expression. For flexible risers in shallow water, internal flow and hydrostatic pressure made virtually no change to effective tension by merely altering the riser wall tension. In deep water the internal pressure wielded a dominant role in governing the riser effective tension and furthering the static configuration, while the effect of inflow velocity was negligible. With respect to the riser seabed interaction, both the seabed support and friction effect were considered, with the former modeled by a nonlinear quadratic spring, allowing for a consistent derivation of the tangent stiffness matrix. The presented application examples show that the nonlinear quadratic spring is, when using the catenary solution as an initial static profile, an efficient way to model the quasi-Winkler-type elastic seabed foundation in this finite element scheme.

Fully Coupled Simulation of Interactions Among Waves, Permeable Breakwaters and Seabeds Based on N−S Equations

Interstitial flows in breakwater cores and seabeds are a key consideration in coastal and marine engineering designs and have a direct impact on their structural safety.In this paper,a unified fully coupled model for wave−permeable breakwater−porous seabed interactions is built based on an improved N−S equation.A numerical wave flume is constructed,and numerical studies are carried out by applying the finite difference method.In combination with a physical model test,the accuracy of the numerical simulation results is verified by comparing the calculated and measured values of wave height at measurement points and the seepage pressure within the breakwater and seabed.On this basis,the characteristics of the surrounding wave field and the internal flow field of the pore structure,as well as the evolution process of the fluctuating pore water pressure inside the breakwater and seabed,are further analyzed.The spatial distribution of the maximum fluctuating pore water pressure in the breakwater is compared between two cases by considering whether the seabed is permeable,and then the effect of seabed permeability on the dynamic pore water pressure in the breakwater is clarified.This study attempts to provide a reference for breakwater design and the protection of nearby seabeds.

A Study on Dynamic Response of Cable-Seabed Interaction

A numerical method is developed to investigate the dynamic response of cable-seabed interaction in this paper. The motion of cable is described by the Lumped Parameter Method, while the seabed, unlike the prevailing simplified model of elastic foundation, is modeled as an irregular continuous rigid surface with rebound and friction existing, and the forces exerted by the seabed consist of normal counterforce and isotropic tangential Coulomb friction resistance. To describe the detailed dynamic response, two coefficients are introduced by analogy with the theory of rigid body collision with friction. The cable-seabed kinematic and dynamic contact conditions are formulated subsequently, and are used to incorporate the seabed effect into the cable dynamics to produce a set of ordinary differential governing equations. In this paper, we employ 4th order Runge-Kutta method to solve these equations. Several simulation cases are presented to illustrate the seabed effect. The results show that friction and impact have a prominent influence on the statics and dynamics of the cable.

NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF SEABED INTERACTION IN TIME DOMAIN ANALYSIS OF MOORING CABLES

In this paper, an efficient two-dimensional finite element model for numerical analysis of mooring cables and seabed interaction has been built. Geometric shape and dynamics of mooring cables are computed in time domain, accounting for the motions of the moored sturcture. In the model, a hybrid beam element is employed to simulate the mooring cable while the seabed is simulated by application of different soil constitutive models. After the elastic and elastic-plastic soil constitutive models have been used for computation, tensions and offsets of mooring cables at fairlead point are also compared accounting for friction effect between cables and seabed. Both transversal and longitudinal behaviors are studied at different water depths.