Proceedings of The Fifteenth (2005) International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference
Seoul, Korea, June 19−24, 2005
Copyright © 2005 by The International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers
ISBN 1-880653-64-8 (Set); ISSN 1098-6189 (Set)
Flexible Riser Fatigue Design and Testing
Carlos Alberto Duarte de Lemos
PETROBRAS/CENPES/Subsea Technology
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
ABSTRACT
The development and qualification of new large diameter flexible riser
structures with higher strength to allow installation in deep waters is
considered of paramount importance to increase Petrobras oil & gas
production. Hence the flexible pipe manufacturers are constantly
motivated to develop new concepts and to extend their design and
construction capabilities.
The development of new prototype pipe design requires a myriad of
studies and tests to certify their strength and fitting for purpose. Among
them, the fatigue design and prototype test have increased in
importance due to the ever greater depths of the new fields.
Once the design methodology depends on the manufacturer and the
fatigue tests required by the international standards consider only the
design life, the limitations and conservatisms of the design
methodologies are unknown by the operators as well as the real safety
factors considered.
It is felt that there is a lack of test results that guarantee the applicability
of the actual fatigue design methodologies. Furthermore, more and
better information about the flexible pipe structural design is needed.
Hence, a new fatigue design specification has been issued by Petrobras
including the directional influence of bi-modal seas and the regular
fatigue test was modified to include a second test step where the fatigue
life is pursuit. This new step tries to reach the theoretical pipe failure
increasing the loads applied during the test until the pipe reaches the
accumulated damage equal to 1 (considering the Miner’s law).
This paper presents a short description of the Working Programme
carried out in Petrobras considering the flexible riser fatigue life design
methodology and testing performed in a sample of the Marlim Sul gas
pipeline, which is connected to the P-40 platform. The sample was
tested until the theoretical fatigue life was reached.
KEY WORDS: Flexible riser; fatigue; test; design methodology.
166
Murilo Augusto Vaz
UFRJ/COPPE/PENO
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
INTRODUCTION
Since the beginning of the oil production in Campos Basin using
flexible pipes, in 1979 with the Early Production System of Enchova
Leste phase I (Machado Filho, 1982), Petrobras has continuously tried
to motivate the flexible pipes manufacturers to develop new products
and extend the knowledge about this product.
The necessity to exploit fields in increasingly greater depths motivated
the development of new riser technologies (such as, steel catenary
risers or hybrid risers) and extended the flexible riser application.
Related to the flexible risers, those efforts started at the end of the 80`s
with several Technological Cooperation Agreements where the
traditional manufacturer Coflexip (nowadays Technip) was motivated
to extend the applicability of their products to deep water and other
manufacturers, like Wellstream, Furukawa, Pirelli and NKT Flexibles
(more recently) were invited to develop their pipes. A frustrated
incursion as shareholder was also tried, with the bonded pipe
manufacturer Pag`o`Flex
Since the beginning, one of the major concern was the pipe design and
the correlation with test results. This could be translated in serials of
qualification tests that the manufacturers were asked to perform and the
requirement of a third part to evaluate the results (normally a
classification society). At the same time, Petrobras was developing its
own tests to get more knowledge about the pipe behavior (Lemos, Cruz
and Meniconi, 1991).
Nowadays with the installation of FPSOs (Floating Production Storage
and Offloading) in deep waters, one point in focus is the fatigue design
of flexible risers. This topic is not completely normalized by the
international standards and is still relying on internal procedures of the
manufacturers. Due to this lack of standardization and knowledge of
the pipe response, real scale tests are being required in new
developments.
Unfortunately, the standard tests have been limited to verify the riser
for service life (usually 20 or 25 years) with no guarantee of the
calibration of design methodologies and the safety factors have been
correct or too conservative since the tests have not been destructive.