Behavior of Unbonded Flexible Risers Subject to Axial Tension

Owing to nonlinear contact problems with slip and friction, a lot of limiting assumptions are made when developing analytical models to simulate the behavior of an unbonded flexible riser. Meanwhile, in order to avoid convergence problems and excessive calculating time associated with running the detailed finite element （FE） model of an unbonded flexible riser, interlocked carcass and zeta layers with complicated cross section shapes are replaced by simple geometrical shapes （e.g. hollow cylindrical shell） with equivalent orthotropic materials. But the simplified model does not imply the stresses equivalence of these two layers. To solve these problems, based on ABAQUS/Explicit, a numerical method that is suitable for the detailed FE model is proposed. In consideration of interaction among all component layers, the axial stiffness of an eight-layer unbonded flexible riser subjected to axial tension is predicted. Compared with analytical and experimental results, it is shown that the proposed numerical method not only has high accuracy but also can substantially reduce the calculating time. In addition, the impact of the lay angle of helical tendons on axial stiffness is discussed.

Analytical and Numerical Models to Predict the Behavior of Unbonded Flexible Risers Under Torsion

This paper presents analytical and numerical models to predict the behavior of unbonded flexible risers under torsion.The analytical model takes local bending and torsion of tensile armor wires into consideration,and equilibrium equations of forces and displacements of layers are deduced.The numerical model includes lay angle,cross-sectional profiles of carcass,pressure armor layer and contact between layers.Abaqus/Explicit quasi-static simulation and mass scaling are adopted to avoid convergence problem and excessive computation time caused by geometric and contact nonlinearities.Results show that local bending and torsion of helical strips may have great influence on torsional stiffness,but stress related to bending and torsion is negligible;the presentation of anti-friction tapes may have great influence both on torsional stiffness and stress;hysteresis of torsion-twist relationship under cyclic loading is obtained by numerical model,which cannot be predicted by analytical model because of the ignorance of friction between layers.

Enhanced Multi-Layer Fatigue-Analysis Approach for Unbonded Flexible Risers

This paper proposes an enhanced approach for evaluating the fatigue life of each metallic layer of unbonded flexible risers. Owing to the complex structure of unbonded flexible risers and the nonlinearity of the system, particularly in the critical touchdown zone, the traditional method is insufficient for accurately evaluating the fatigue life of these risers. The main challenge lies in the transposition from global to local analyses, which is a key stage for the fatigue analysis of flexible pipes owing to their complex structure. The new enhanced approach derives a multi-layer stress-decomposition method to meet this challenge. In this study, a numerical model validated experimentally is used to demonstrate the accuracy of the stress-decomposition method. And a numerical case is studied to validate the proposed approach. The results demonstrate that the multi-layer stress-decomposition method is accurate, and the fatigue lives of the metallic layers predicted by the enhanced multi-layer analysis approach are rational. The proposed fatigue-analysis approach provides a practical and reasonable method for predicting fatigue life in the design of unbonded flexible risers.

Coupled Element Modeling Scheme for the Global Dynamic Analysis of Unbonded Flexible Risers

A coupled element modeling method is proposed for global dynamic analyses of unbonded flexible risers.Owing to the multi-layer structure of unbonded flexible risers, the global-dynamic-analysis method applied to the steel rigid risers is insufficient for flexible risers. The main challenges lie in the enormous difference between the anti-tension and anti-binding capacity of unbonded flexible risers which results in serious ill-conditional calculation in global dynamic analysis. In order to solve this problem, the coupled element modeling approach was proposed in this study. A time domain fatigue analysis was applied to illustrate the necessity of the proposed approach.A dynamic benchmark case is used to demonstrate the accuracy of the coupled element method respectively.Subsequently the validated coupling element method is employed to conduct the global dynamic analyses for a free hanging flexible riser. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach can give the accurate global dynamic response under the guidance of the fatigue failure mode for unbonded flexible riser. The parametric influence analyses also provide a practical and effective way for predicting the global dynamic response.