Stability analyses of subsea pipelines against axial walking

PhD student

Soumyajyoti Ghosh

Supervisors

Prof Yinghui Tian	Prof Mark Cassidy	Dr Shubhrajit Maitra	Dr Yifa Wang

Project Start Date: February 2022

Project Details

Subsea pipelines, used to convey oil and gas, are laid directly over the seabed in deep waters and operate at high pressure and high temperature (HPHT) conditions. These pipes are subjected to repeated cycles of heating and cooling. Consequently, axial displacement may get accumulated over time, resulting in a caterpillar-like movement of the pipe in the axial direction. This phenomenon is termed as pipeline walking.

The study will focus on modelling axial walking through analytical and numerical approaches. Also, physical modelling of pipe-soil axial interaction under normal gravity conditions is planned to capture the soil resistance to axial pipe movement.  The expected outcomes will be utilised to propose safe design methodologies to maintain stability of pipeline-manifold systems when subjected to walking.