Open Access Research Article

Stability Performance Assessment of Pipelines under Hydrostatic Pressure

Farhad Riahi1, Tadeh Zirakian2*, David Boyajian2, Mansour Mohammadi1 and Alaeddin Behravesh1

1Department of Civil Engineering, Mahabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mahabad, Iran

2Department of Civil Engineering and Construction Management, California State University, Northridge, CA, USA

Corresponding Author

Received Date: March 16, 2019;  Published Date: March 26, 2019

Abstract

Pipelines are an economical means of transporting oil and gas. A commonly encountered performance issue with such structures, however, is their susceptibility to buckling under hydrostatic and hydrodynamic pressure loads. In such a failure scenario, the pipe will suddenly collapse under the action of the loads and can render the transport structure as ineffective. The engineering design of pipes must therefore account for the action and magnitudes of such anticipated service loading, referred to as buckle propagation pressure, in achieving an adequate and sound performance. As for the notion of economy, since buckle propagation pressure is closely related to the pipe wall thickness, it has a direct bearing on overall project costs. In this study, to simulate in situ conditions of subsea pipelines, only uniform hydrostatic pressure was taken into consideration as the source for loading. A finite element method (FEM) model was then used to examine the buckling modes on pipes of two different diameters varying at four diameter-to-thickness ratios. With the pipes modeled as having clamped supports, predicted values of stress, strain, reaction force, and displacement at the ends and at midspan, were obtained. The results found show an inverse relationship between the diameterto- thickness ratios and buckling capacities of the pipes.

Keywords:Pipeline; Buckling; Hydrostatic pressure; Diameter-to-thickness ratio; Numerical simulation

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