Dynamics of shell-like tubular segments at the sagbend region of a steel catenary riser

摘要

Nonlinear finite element method (FEM) analyses are performed for the simulation of the dynamic stress conditions of tubular segments of a long catenary pipeline, corresponding to a particular steel catenary riser. The tubular segments are discretised with eight-node planar shell-elements. The transient analysis of each segment is accomplished via an implicit time integration scheme. The time-dependent loads and boundary conditions on each segment are primarily derived by the solution of an integrated line dynamics model that relies on a finite differences scheme. The present FEM solution aims at a more detailed depicture of the distribution of dynamic stresses, considering the pipeline as a shell structure instead of using the simplistic "line-dynamics" approach.