An optimized flexible riser design not only requests that the stress of local cross-section shouldn’t exceed the allowable strength, but also can be compliant with the floater to improve the fatigue life. It should be particularly pointed out that the flexible riser is a typical multi-scale system, which consists of the local cross-sectional scale and the global configuration scale, which differentiates each other a lot from their geometrical scales. A bi-scale response surface model is established to perform the optimized design of flexible risers by considering the parameters of local cross-sections and global configurations simultaneously. The response surface model can be an effective surrogate model to integrate the local and global responses into one loop so that the computational efficiency can be increased significantly. In the bi-scale response model, design variables of a flexible riser are extracted and defined at both the local sectional scale and global configuration scale. Sensitivity analyses of the two objectives, ultimate tension and bending strength on the design variables are then deduced to establish the bi-scale optimization framework through the response surface methodology. Finally, the optimization framework is implemented on a flexible riser with lazy-wave configuration which is considered as a case study. The properties of the optimized flexible risers are compared with those without the optimization. It is found that the ultimate load bearing capacity and fatigue life of the optimized flexible riser are improved significantly. Moreover, the feasibility and effectiveness of the bi-scale optimization strategy are verified through numerical simulations, which indicates that the bi-scale response surface optimization methodology provides a new thought and approach to explore the design potential of flexible risers.

Subsea pipeline laid on the seabed will experience free span when the lay path is long and seabed is rugged. Hydrodynamic loads caused by the currents around the pipeline can induce oscillations in both cross-flow and in-line directions. This phenomenon is called vortex-induced vibration (VIV) which is the most common case that could induce serious fatigue problems. The pipe-soil interaction is one of the main factors that influence the vibration. In this paper, a study focusing on the effect of pipe-soil interaction on VIV for different types of free span is presented. The Milan wake oscillator is applied to calculate the dynamic response induced by VIV in Orcaflex, and the results are compared with experimental data to identify its validity. A sensitivity study is also performed to study the parameter influence of the Milan wake oscillator model. Four types of free span (including the multiple free spans) are modeled in Orcaflex and time domain VIV analysis is carried out to study the influence of pipe-soil interaction. Comparison among different types of free span is discussed. The influence of structural damping is studied for flexible pipe only because its influence on steel pipe is negligible. The influence of structural damping on flexible pipe is studied by means of a predefined moment-curvature curve. In addition, several cases are studied to investigate the influence of tension on VIV by Milan wake oscillator.

This paper investigates the effect of stick stiffness on the bending behavior in non-bonded flexible risers. The stick stiffness was normally implemented in the friction model for calculating the friction stress between layers in such structures. As the stick stiffness may be too small to achieve the plane-surfaces-remain-plane assumption under low contact pressure in some friction models [1], a new friction model was proposed for maintaining the constant stick stiffness in the present work. Less stick stiffness than that obtained by the plane-surfaces-remain-plane assumption was observed in test data. It was assumed that the stick stiffness reduction is caused by shear deformation of plastic layers. A numerical study on stick stiffness by including the shear deformation effect was carried out and verified against full scale tests with respect to the bending moment-curvature relationship.

Flexible pipe has been widely used in offshore industry for many years. The traditional composite structure of flexible pipe consists of many layers, including multiple metallic layers, such as tensile armor, pressure armor and carcass, as well as nonmetallic layers, such as sheath and liner. Typical flexible pipe is heavy and requires complex manufacturing process, especially pressure armor and carcass manufacturing. Therefore, there is a desire to find a replacement to pressure armor and carcass. With the recent development of a new composite material with lighter weight and higher strength, it now becomes possible. This new composite material is called epoxy compounded carbon fiber (EP/CF). Carbon fiber is 10 times stronger than steel, while it is only 1/5 of the steel weight. Epoxy protects carbon fiber from environmental conditions such as high temperature and corrosion, also bond carbon fiber together and help to redistribute the loading between carbon fibers. This paper is to present a new concept of flexible pipe by applying the EP/CF material to flexible design. In this new flexible concept, EP/CF is used to strengthen the inner sheath by surface activation treatment of sheath material. This provides excellent hoop strength to resist the inner pressure, hence provides a good replacement to the pressure armor and carcass. A new FEA analysis method with ABAQUS is also presented in this paper. In the analysis approach, all helix fibers are modelled using predefined beam element, and EP/CF reinforced inner sheath is modeled using laminated composite shell. Nonlinear FEA analysis is carried out in ABAQUS to investigate the tension and bending behavior of flexible pipe with reinforced inner sheath, including the performance of inner pressure resistance, which is one of the key performances. Analysis is also carried out to study the benefit of using EP/CF on outer sheath reinforcement for collision protection. Lastly, the economics and feasibility of this concept are discussed, and conclusions are drawn.

Flexible risers are exposed to complicated loading conditions including internal/external pressure, wave and current loads, as well as floater movements. The combination of these three loads may lead to instability of the tensile armor wire in both longitudinal and transverse directions, which may result in different stress state based on different numerical models in BFLEX software. Simplified models have been implemented to calculate the stress in tensile armor wires with moderate accuracy, with only considering the longitudinal slip of wires. In order to investigate how the transverse slip will influence the stress state, a full finite element (FullFE) modeling option has been implemented recently to capture the interaction between different layers more precisely thus giving more accurate stress prediction. Different stress components will be compared with already existing simplified approaches. In addition, geodesic and loxodromic slip assumptions will be applied to study the slip behavior of the tensile armor layers.

During deep water flexible pipe installation, the pipe is normally free hanging in empty condition from the installation vessel to the seabed. This will introduce large hydrostatic forces to the pipe causing true wall compression. In addition, the pipe will be exposed to cyclic bending caused by waves and vessel motion. The combination of true wall axial compression and cyclic bending may lead to tensile armor instability in both lateral and radial directions. If the anti-buckling tape is assumed to be strong enough, the inner tensile armor will lose its lateral stability first due to the gap that may occur between the inner tensile armor and the pipe core, hence restricting the available friction restraint forces. These may further be reduced by cyclic motions that act to create slip between the layers, hence introducing lateral buckling of the tensile armor, with associated severe global torsion deformation of the pipe, ultimately causing the pipe to lose its integrity. The anti-buckling tape is designed to prevent the radial buckling behavior, however, its effect on lateral buckling has not yet been documented in available literature. In the present paper, the effect of the winding direction of the anti-buckling tape on the twist of the cross section is studied, including comparisons with available test data from literature.

The service life of a flexible riser is often dominated by the metallic layers under cyclic bending loads, particularly the tensile armor layers. The effect of the anti-wear tapes is normally omitted during cross section modelling, where a plane-remain-plane assumption is usually used for stick condition. Significant differences have been observed between numerical analysis assuming plane surfaces remain plane and laboratory measurements studying the bending moment versus curvature for a flexible riser which has anti-wear tapes between the two tensile armor layers. A new shear interaction algorithm has been developed in the numerical model to improve the modeling of the anti-wear tapes by taking the thickness and shear modulus of the anti-wear material into account. The impact of these parameters on the bending behavior of the flexible riser is demonstrated by comparing the numerical analysis results with the laboratory measurements.

Steel tube umbilical risers in deep water applications are subject to significant variable environmental loads during operation. These tubes are designed to carry high pressure fluids, up to 15,000 psi. The stresses accumulated in the walls consist of contribution from movement of the floating platform on which the umbilical is connected, axial tension due to the weight of umbilical and ancillaries, and internal pressure due to end cap effect. The helically wound steel tubes in umbilicals are un-bonded and can slip against adjacent layers. Therefore the stresses in these tubes experience a hysterical feature when the slip changes directions. It is known that in addition to bending stress, friction stress range has a major contribution in fatigue damage. If there is full slip, the friction stress range will be a constant value regardless of the load variation. However in many cycles the full slip is not reached and the stress range is proportional to load variation. This paper focuses on evaluating the impact of friction and contact pressure on helical steel tubes. The initial gaps between steel tubes and adjacent layers, friction coefficients and the contact stiffness are the main factors that affect such investigation. A novel methodology by using UFLEX2D (a MARINTEK product) has been applied for modeling complex umbilical cross sections and for the study of these parameters. Two cross sections for the same subsea application but with different designs have been investigated in the study. It has been shown how fatigue damage can be significantly impacted by different cross sectional design. For this study, non-linear moment/curvature relationship has been included in the analyses. Based on the findings of this study, more realistic results can be achieved by including the non-linear behavior in global analysis for fatigue damage calculations instead of using nominal bending stiffness supplied by umbilical manufacturer.

For pipe lay operations parameters like heading and position of the lay vessel are available from the GPS system on the vessel. In some cases the current profile may also be monitored. Provided that a fast and robust numerical tool is available and can be integrated with the on-board system, the above parameters and a measure of tension in the pipe will be sufficient to simulate the appurtenant static configuration of the catenary and visualize it online during the lay operation. Such a system will provide valuable additional information such as: catenary shape including stresses in the pipe, lay tension, development of free spans, and lateral stability during installation. In the period April-August 2009 two field tests of the developed system were performed. Both field tests were related to Acergy installation campaigns for the Ormen Lange Phase II development in the North Sea; 1) ∼13 km infield MEG (IMEGDA) installation by Acergy Falcon, and 2) ∼13km infield umbilical (IUMB-DA) installation by Acergy Eagle (both at ∼860m water depth). In this paper the experiences from the field tests are discussed. This includes assessment of on-board data collection and storage of key parameters during installation, real-time online 3D finite element (FE) analysis and satellite link to shore for support during installation. The accuracy of the results obtained in the on-board monitoring system is assessed by comparison to available as-laid survey information.

The design of flexible risers has been challenged by the exploration of oil and gas goes into ever-deep regions as in Mexico Gulf and West Africa. Comparing to the fatigue analysis of the tensile armors which have been extensively investigated in recent years, much less effort has been devoted in the fatigue of pressure armor. The fatigue of the pressure armor is much more complicated than the tensile armors. For the tensile armor, the longitudinal stress along the helix path dominates the fatigue behavior, while for the pressure armor, more stress components will play together to affect its fatigue. If the fatigue of the tensile armor can be characterized as a uni-axial fatigue phenomenon, the fatigue of the pressure armor will be a typical multi-axial problem. The stress components in the pressure armor consist of contribution from the following sources: stress in the hoop direction due to internal/external pressure, stress in the radial direction due to the pressure and contact pressure from the tensile armor layer, stresses caused by the ovalization when the riser is bent, and local stresses due to local bending (nub/valley contact). The friction between the nub and valley interface is reflected in the local stress components as well. A Finite Element (FE) based computer program BFLEX developed by MARINTEK for the stress analysis of flexible risers are capable of calculating the complicate stress components of the pressure armors. In order to perform fatigue damage calculation for the pressure armor, mean stress and stress range must be computed based on these stress components. Mean stress correction becomes very important due to large mean stress experienced by the pressure armor. There are several ways to make use of these stress components to derive the mean stress and stress range. Equivalent stress models and critical plane models are the main models to address the general feature of the multi-axial fatigue. The application of these models on the fatigue of the pressure armor of the flexible risers will be discussed in this paper. The best suited model will be suggested based on the specific stress components in the pressure armor.

Filled bodies are often built into umbilicals to support other key components such as tubes and electric elements. These bodies play an important role in transferring the contact load between bodies when the structure is loaded. The geometrical profile can be arbitrary to fill the voids within the umbilical cross section and this causes difficulties with respect to implementation into a general finite element model. Common practice is to omit the filled bodies in cross section modeling by enabling direct contact between components. However, it has been found that the friction stress will be over estimated by this method and cause over-conservative fatigue calculations. This may be critical specially for deep water dynamic umbilicals and more accurate estimation of the friction stress is therefore needed. UFLEX2D is a non-linear finite element computer program for stress analysis of complex umbilical cross sections, see [3] and [5]. The model can handle arbitrary geometries wound in an arbitrary order including filled bodies. Contact elements are used to handle the contact between bodies due to external loading. Thin-wall shell elements were used to model the steel tubes while beam elements were used for the filled bodies in the earlier version of UFLEX2D. A beam element is treated as a rigid body incapable of deforming under external loading. It has been found that the formulation of the beam element for the filled bodies yields relatively large contact pressure for the neighboring element due to its rigidity. As a consequence, friction stress owing to the contact pressure is overestimated by the choice of the beam element for the filled bodies, however, it will be smaller than the direct contact modeling technique mentioned above. A new element type, i.e. a beam-shell element, has been developed to represent the filled bodies so as to improve the contact formulation between the filled bodies and the other surrounding structural elements. Unlike the beam element, the beam-shell element is able to deform, therefore the contact area is varying while the external load updates. The friction stress will be accordingly affected by the redistribution of the contact pressure on an updated contact area. The paper outlines how different implementations of the filled bodies will affect the distribution of the contact pressure as well as the friction stress under cyclical loading. The effect of the original contact area, as well as the development of the contact area is also a part of the study fot the three alternative models investigated.

Fatigue design of armor layers of flexible risers in ultra-deep water depth fields is challenging. Very high internal pressure and tension impose extreme contact pressure between steel armor layers. The paper outlines how these challenges were handled focusing on the physical effects that needed to be included in the structural mechanics model and the procedure used to calculate the lifetime. Residual stresses due to manufacturing plays an important role in reducing the fatigue performance of the pressure layer by affecting the mean stress level. However, this effect can be improved by selecting appropriate factory acceptance test (FAT). A tailor-made finite element program (BFLEX) has been designed to make this sort of analyses possible and ensure the safety of the flexible riser design for ultra-deep water depth. The study is also extended to discuss the fatigue damage owing to friction in the armor layer for the ultra-deep water flexible because of higher contact pressure on the armor layer. Finally, the fatigue behavior of the pressure amour is a typical multi-axial fatigue problem. Various models are proposed to address how different stress components are exposed for the fatigue calculation.

In the present paper, fatigue safety factors for metallic layers of flexible risers are assessed. A procedure for reliability analysis of wave-induced fatigue is first described. The procedure is based on performing a number of parametric studies with respect to variables that influence the fatigue lifetime. The results of these parametric studies are subsequently combined with models describing the statistical scatter of the same parameters. By application of this procedure, the safety factors which are required in order to reach specific target reliability levels can be computed. Example of calculation of such safety factors for the tensile and pressure armours of some specific flexible riser configurations are given. Different SN-curves which correspond to different corrosive environments are considered. The percentwise contribution from each parameter to the total statistical variation of the limit state function is also quantified.