Experimental and numerical investigation of vertical pipe–soil interaction considering pipe velocity

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.

Keywords:

• steel catenary riser
• pipe–soil interaction
• coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian
• large deformation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is funded by National Key Basic Research Program of China [grant number 2014CB046806-004], Science Foundation of China University of Petroleum, Beijing [grant number ZX20150084]. Key Laboratory of Shandong Province Offshore Petroleum Equipment, Shandong ShengLi Petroleum Equipment Industrial Technology Research Institute [grant number KRKFJJ-03].