Proceedings of the Twenty-second (2012) International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference Rhodes, Greece, June 1722, 2012

Copyright 2012 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE) ISBN 978-1-880653-944 (Set); ISSN 1098-6189 (Set)

www.isope.org

Seabed Interaction Effects on Stress Distribution along the J-lay Pipelines

Hodjat Shiri and Alireza Sadeghi
Civil Engineering Department, Urmia University of Technology Urmia, Iran

ABSTRACT
The nature of seabed interaction both in catenary risers and J-lay pipelines is the main boundary condition governing the performance in the touchdown zone. Design must ensure that the curvature remains well within elastic limits, and that fatigue damage remains acceptable during the life. Closed form solutions, although limited in their accuracy because of idealisations of the system response, offer a first step in assessing the system performance. The paper compares the results of different boundary layer models with those from finite element analysis to evaluate the accuracy and consistency of solutions for initial design assumptions and fatigue assessment.

KEY WORDS: Steel catenary riser; SCR; seabed interaction; boundary layer method. INTRODUCTION
In recent decades, increasing of the energy demand and development of Marine energy has created new challenges in design and installation of subsea pipelines. New pipeline design and installation methods were also developed in offshore industries. One of the most popular technics used for pipelines in deep and ultra-deep waters is the J-lay methodology. The most important characteristics of the J-lay method are (i) the reduction of the distance between the vessel and the touchdown point (TPD), thus facilitating the dynamic positioning, (ii) the drastic reduction of the horizontal force at the barge to be supplied by the vessel engines, and (iii) the elimination of the overbend curved part at the end of the stinger, which, among others, can produce dangerous high stresses and strains. Furthermore, it reduces the pull tension required at the vessel to lay the pipeline and eliminates the long and vulnerable stinger (Lenci and Callegari, 2005). Disadvantages of this method include: (i) that the processing operations are more difficult along the steep ramp, leading to slower laying rates, (ii) the capability to lay the pipeline within a narrow corridor with stringent lay tolerances, and (iii) bigger vessels with greater installed power are needed to grant the dynamic positioning under all possible operating conditions. The advantages of this method usually are dominant over the disadvantages and however this approach has high cost but in some case this is the only reliable technique for the deep water. Another method that is used in deep water is the catenary riser method (SCR). Using this method has increased greatly in recent decades and due to the economy of this method, it is very common in deep water. Steel catenary risers (SCRs) are thick-walled steel pipes that hang in a catenary from the floating system to the seabed, provide a technically feasible and commercially efficient solution, especially when high

temperatures and pressures are involved, allowing high capacity production from remote wells (Phifer et al., 1994; Quintin et al., 2007). The nature of seabed interaction both in catenary risers and J-lay pipelines is the main boundary condition governing the performance of these systems in the touchdown zone. The design must ensure that the curvature remains well within elastic limits, and that fatigue damage due to stress changes in the pipe wall remains acceptable during the operation life. Closed form solutions, although limited in their accuracy because of idealizations of the system response, offer a first step in assessing the system performance. They have the advantage of offering insight into the system mechanics, which cannot be gained through numerical methods such as FEA (finite element analysis). Simplified closed form solutions allow approximate estimation of the maximum stress in the SCR, thus on the one hand providing useful data for design and on the other hand serving as a good reference point for overall checking of the results from FEA. These analytical methods commonly calculate stress by using basic catenary equation for suspended part of SCR and boundary element method for touchdown zone. This study represents and investigates the analytical methods and explains their advantage and drawback and compares the results of this method with the results of a numerical method. by change vessel position, the position of the TDP relocate, which will affected the SCR profile and stress distribution at the seabed, therefore it is useful to apply the catenary equation for evaluate the movement of the TDP. An important design consideration for SCRs is the combined bending and tension stress along the riser, especially in the touchdown area where its maximum value. this study show that influence of the theory of the model is very important in stress distribution and continuity in touch down zone in SCR. the models that over simplified have discontinuity in bending moment and shear force in touch down zone. In this paper compare several models with finite element analysis and shown accuracy and consistency of the models for initial design assumption and evaluation of fatigue. The problem that concerned in this study is comparing the analytical method by finite element approaches.

FIRST MODEL: SCR MODEL ON RIGID SEABED

The simplest model for modeling the behavior of the SCR assumes rigid seabed model. In this model the seabed is assumed to be rigid, so ignoring the bending stiffness, the suspension part follows the catenary equation. Although this is not realistic, it provides the starting point for more realistic solutions. In this section, the catenary equations will be applied to the SCR to examine their consistency for SCR modeling, in comparison to rigorous analysis using ABAQUS.

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