Reliability analysis of marine risers with narrow and long corrosion defects under combined loads

A marine riser,one of the most important components of offshore oil/gas transportation,needs to be designed to eliminate the risks caused by complex ocean environments,platform displacement and internal corrosion,etc.In this study,a new analytical-numerical assessment approach is proposed in order to quantitatively investigate the reliability of internally corroded risers under combined loads including axial tension and internal pressure.First,an analytical solution of the limit state function of intact risers under combined loads is obtained,which is further modified by the non-dimensional corrosion depth （d/ t） for the risers with a narrow and long corrosion defect.The relationship between d/t and limited internal pressure is obtained by finite element analysis and nonlinear regression.Through an advanced first-order reliability method （HL-RF） algorithm,reliability analysis is performed to obtain the failure probability,the reliability index and the sensitivity.These results are further verified by Monte-Carlo importance sampling.The proposed approach of reliability analysis provides an accurate and effective way to estimate the reliability of marine risers with narrow and long corrosion defects under combined loads.

Experimental Investigation of Dust Deposit within Ceramic Filter Medium during Filtration-Cleaning Cycles

The penetration and deposit of particles within the medium is thought to be one reason that the residual pressure drop of the rigid ceramic filter increase with cycle number.In this study,the change in the microstructure of a single layer ceramic filter candle during filtration-cleaning cycle was observed by scanning electron microscope(SEM) and the resistance property of the filter was monitored accordingly.The experimental results show that there exists a serious dust deposit within the filter medium,especially at the surface region.This should be responsible for the decrease of the filter permeability.The deposit law of dust in the filter medium during filtration-cleaning cycle was then studied by measuring the deposit depth,the deposit amount,the particles distribution within the medium,the size distribution of deposited particles,and so on.Particles migration and fine particles penetration were found to be the main reasons,for which dust deposit within the filter medium became aggravated with cycle number.Based on a differential form of Ergun equation,an expression for the pressure drop of a used ceramic filter was developed with a good agreement with experimental results.Then,the effect of dust deposit on the residual pressure drop was studied at the different face velocities and dust sizes.It was found that face velocity and dust size significantly influence dust deposit within filter medium,and then the operation performance of the filter.