Composite risers for deepwater applications

摘要

Advanced composite materials offer several unique properties such as light weight, high specific strength, good thermal insulation and excellent fatigue and corrosion resistance that make them economically attractive for deepwater applications, particularly for depth sensitive components such as risers. However, the successful offshore application of composite riers requires addressing several key technical issues that are unique to composite components. These issues include performance requirements, damage mechanisms, damage protection strategy, failure modes, design and analysis strategy, analysis validation, allowable strength parameters, manufacturing AQ/QC, and regulations. The paper reviews the basic elements that need to be considered under each issue by drawing from the results of several projects whose goals were to develop, qualify and commercialize composite production risers and drilling risers. These projects include the NIST-ATP projects on composite production riser and low pressure composite drilling riser and Norske Conoco/Kvaerner JIP on high pressure composite drilling riser. In addition, the paper discusses some of the current effort that is currently underway to develop design guidelines for composite risers. The paper also presents the basis for the positive economic impact of using advanced comosites risers as compared to conventional steel and titantium risers.