Subsea flowline buckle capacity considering uncertainty in pipe-soil interaction

摘要

Two probabilistic methods for evaluating the initial buckling capacity of subsea flowlines are described. The methods represent the seafloor strength as either a random homogenous material or one developed from a spatially correlated random field. The investigations include the random nature of flowline embedment and out-of-straightness, both of which influence the flowline buckle capacity. The two methods are used in an example illustrating the probability of buckle formation for a simple flowline problem. The example application results in a comparatively small range of buckle capacity, which would otherwise be difficult to substantiate based on deterministic design space selections. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.