An Analytical Approach for Predicting the Collapse Pressure of the Flexible Risers With Initial Ovalization and Gap

Abstract

A flexible riser is a flexible pipe that transports materials between seafloor and topside structures. As oil and gas production heads to water depths greater than 3000 meters, huge hydrostatic pressure may cause the collapse failure of flexible risers. Generally, the collapse strength of a flexible riser is designed by considering the effects of initial imperfections, e.g., ovality of the carcass, and radial gap between the carcass/liner and pressure armor. These two imperfections may cause a significant reduction in the collapse strength of flexible risers under the flooded annulus condition. However, there are few analytical models available in the public literature that could take those factors into account. In this paper, an analytical approach is presented to predict the critical collapse pressure of the flexible risers with initial imperfections. The analytical results were compared with the numerical simulation, which showed reasonably good agreement.

Predicting the wet collapse pressure for flexible risers with initial ovalization and gap: An analytical solution

“…We note that a shorter conference version [19] of this paper appeared in OMAE 2019 conference. Our initial conference paper did not address the problem of collapse modes.…”