Abstract
The repeated motion of steel catenary risers (SCR) at the touchdown zone is one of the key factors considered in SCR design. Soil behaviours under different pipe velocities further complicate the accurate assessment of pipe–soil interactions. In the present research, a vertical pipe–soil interaction model test system was developed in this research study to investigate the effect of pipe velocity. The experimental results under soft clay condition indicated a close relationship between soil behaviour and pipe velocity, and the increase of cyclic number was also attributed to the progressive softening and trenching effect of soil until relative stabilisation. A new backbone curve model considering pipe velocity was obtained based on the validated coupled Eulerian–Lagrangianmethod, and the accuracy of the model was verified by the experiment results.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.