Proceedings of the Twentieth (2010) International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference Beijing, China, June 2025, 2010

Copyright 2010 by The International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE) ISBN 978-1-880653-77-7 (Set); ISSN 1098-6189 (Set); www.isope.org

The Concepts for Pipeline Strain-Based Design

Hong Gao, Zhifeng Yu, Zhang Zhenyong, Hang Shi
China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Corporation. Langfang, Hebei, China

ABSTRACT
This paper introduces some basic concepts of the strain-based design of pipelines, which has been developed worldwide in recent years. They are the meaning of the strain-based design, the strain limits of the compressive and tensile strains, the factors influencing strain limits and the empirical formulas to calculate them. Meanwhile, some aspects affecting strain-based design have been presented, such as the strain aging, the specific requirements for the steel pipe, the girth welding and its non-destructive test requirements etc. Some practice for strain-based design in China has also been mentioned. .

non-linear stress-strain relationship of the steel to maintain strain in control and keep the pipeline operating safely and reducing the steel cost... Strain-Based Design of pipelines began in 1980s with the use of X70 and higher grade steel in arctic regions. It is used to improve the toughness and deformation of the pipe to fit the deformation of the frozen ground. It is now recognized that strain-based design should be adopted in areas where great ground movements may occur such as the activities of seismic, frost heave and thaw settlement, mine settlement, unstable slopes and water scouring. Offshore pipelines are also designed and constructed using strain-based design method. It is known that strain-based design is complementary to the common stress-based design and it is suitable for large longitudinal deformations of pipelines As the stress will disappear as soon as the deformation is stopped, permanent stress exceeding yield stress will not be produced. In spite of using strain-based in design, the wall thickness should be computed by stressbased design method, in order to withstand the permanent loads. Strain-based design includes strain requirements and strain capacity. Materials and environmental conditions shall be taken into account to obtain a good strain-based design.

KEY WORDS: Strain limit, tensile, compressive, influent factors,

linepipe, weld

INTRODUCTION
Strain-based design is a new term and design method which has been developed in the last eightys and has not been recognized very well at present. Under the helps of Dr. Wang Yong-Yi and JFE, pipeline strainbased design has begun to study in China. Up till now, we have known the concept of strain-based design, strain capacity and demand as well as the basic requirements of the line pipe material, welding and nondestructive testing. Special performance of the material of X80 high deformation pipe and its checking method, strain aging, weld performance and weld process have also been studied, and a specification for X80 high deformation linepipe for China west to east gas pipeline has been made. A lot of problems have also been found in the study, which is needed to be discussed with the colleagues and the experts in the world. This paper is a general instruction for our study.

STRAIN-BASED DESIGN RULE AND SAFEY FACTOR

The rule of Strain-based design is that the strain requirement shall be smaller than the allowable strain of the pipeline. The strain requirement shall be considered in the geotechnical investigation process of the pipeline route including pipeline route characteristic, the process for soil sampling and experiment, and all of these conditions and parameters shall be considered. The accurate forecast for strain requirement needs a suitable model to analyze the pipeline and soil. A suitable model of pipeline strain deals with the models of earth layer deformation and pipeline and soil action, the relationship of pipeline real stress-strain and stress redistribution, strain hardening and plastic deformation. The result of the calculation shall be checked in an appropriate way. Allowable strain means strain limitation which includes strain limit and

UNDERSTANDING STRAIN-BASED DESIGN

Strain-Based Design of pipeline is a relatively new term and design method, which has been developing worldwide in the last eighty years and has just begun to be studied in China in recent years. This method takes advantage of steels well-known ability to deform plastically, but remain a stable structure. Finite element analysis is used to calculate the

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