For the protection from dropped object/fishing trawl impact, flexible flowlines are normally trenched or rock-dumped. And hence, upheaval buckling and lateral buckling may be promoted by the elevated temperatures and high pressures. Due to the unique properties of un-bonded flexible flowline, the flexible flowline may creep in the trench or rock berm when it is subjected to cyclic pressure and temperature changes due to start-up and shut-down of flowline in service. In this paper, a finite element analysis model for the global buckling and upheaval creep of flexible flowline is proposed. In this model the effect of bending stiffness hysteresis are considered in addition to the temperature and pressure changes in each start-up/ shut-down cycle. A case study of a 10" water injection flowline is performed by using finite element analysis software package ANSYS. The nonlinear general beam section is used to simulate the specific flexible pipe behavior, nonlinear bending behavior but linear axial behavior.
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