Single Buoyancy Load to Trigger Lateral Buckles in Pipelines on a Soft Seabed
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 141, Issue 5
Abstract
For exposed subsea pipelines, lateral buckles are usually artificially triggered as an accommodation technique to release thermal expansion by providing temporary flotation with controlled spacing. With the given buoyancy load, the pipeline will be uplifted initially and will then buckle laterally under a certain thermally induced axial load, which is called the bifurcation load. Previous studies have analyzed this problem and modeled the uplifted pipeline as a fixed-fixed end beam, assuming the lateral seabed stiffness is infinite. However, the lateral seabed stiffness is usually low because the seabed is formed from soft soils. Using analytical methods, this paper investigates the buoyancy load required to trigger lateral buckles along a pipeline, considering a seabed with finite elastic stiffness, and provides suggestions for the buoyancy design with an elastic-plastic seabed model using an example of finite-element analysis. It was found that the seabed condition significantly influenced the flotation design.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51079128 and 51279176), the National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (Grant No. 51325901), and the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 2014T70574).
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 141 • Issue 5 • May 2015
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 23, 2013
Accepted: Aug 11, 2014
Published online: Sep 24, 2014
Published in print: May 1, 2015
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