Subsea Pipelines Global Buckling Design

What happens in a buckle, and how to get one

Scope

What happens in a buckle.

Pros and cons of engineered buckle triggers.
Naturally occurring buckle triggers and how to analyse them.
A bit of large-scale reality.

Buckle shape / mode

Mode how many lobes:

Buckle type

Two
Upheaval

Lateral
(OK, three):
Upheave that
falls over

What happens in a buckle

Previously covered what a buckle is

Snap Buckling

Taylor Gan solutions

Failure mode

Need to exceed bending resistance of pipe as well as

frictional resistance of soil (for a lateral buckle):

Link to snap buckling

Sense checks 1

Snake lay buckles should initiate at

Post buckle force snap / not should smoothly decrease
after buckle:
Acceptable model
length?
Always look at
the pictures!

Sense Checks 2

Strain / displacement plots:

Sense Checks 3

Moment plots:
Much the same as strain.
Equivalent moment / curvature should collapse on to
moment curvature plot, analogous to stress / strain.

Sense Checks 4

Trends:
Expect critical buckle force to decrease with sleeper
height.
Three out of
four isnt
good enough:

Reality Check 1

Can you actually install what you want?

Sleeper size / weight
Seabed topography at sleeper landing site
Snake lay radius
Field layout limitations
Buoyancy

Reality Check 2

Can you ensure you will get what you want?

Racing Line through a snake lay corridor
Potential settlement
The offshore effect...Sh*t happens! How much can you
deal with.

Reality Check 3

Rock dumping
Anchoring
Do you really (I mean, really) need them?

Engineered Buckle Triggers Vertical Sleepers 1

Proven in the field

Low peak loads
Elevated buckle crown reduced uncertainty of
buckle restraint
Introduce spans
VIV
Slugging issues
Installation

OTC15310 Harrison et al

Engineered Buckle Triggers Vertical Sleepers 2

OTC15310 Harrison et al

Engineered Buckle Triggers Modified Sleepers 1

Engineered Buckle Triggers Modified Sleepers 1

Engineered Buckle Triggers Modified Sleepers 1

Lowest buckle initiation force.

Can direct your buckle.

As per sleepers.
With added installation issues.

Engineered Buckle Triggers Modified Sleepers 2

Engineered Buckle Triggers Modified Sleepers 3

Engineered Buckle Triggers - Buoyancy Modules

Very low buckle

initiation force
Benign buckles

Instability
Degradation over time
Uncertainty over effects on lateral restraint
Limited application

Engineered Buckle Triggers Snake Lay

Cheap
Reliable and well-proven
Low through-life loads
Likely to know buckle direction
Counteracts

Not suitable for very soft soils

Space constraints

Natural Buckle Triggers - Bathymetry

Reliable already installed

Rough seabed lots of potential buckle initiators
Can complement engineered triggers
Proving
what will
happen.

Natural Buckle Triggers As-Laid Out-of-Straightness 1

The more buckles the better

Can control to some extent with lay tolerances
SAFEBUCK require you to consider variance in
route bends as well as nominally straight pipe
No idea on what you will get until installation
Client nervousness over rogue buckles
Justified with e.g. midline Tees, pipeline
crossings

Natural Buckle Triggers As-Laid Out-of-Straightness 2

Two paths:
Take your pipe and
predict what may occur
during worst-case
installation manoeuvres.

Natural Buckle Triggers As-Laid Out-of-Straightness 3

OR
Take existing survey data and try to second-guess based on
historical trends.
Care must be taken pipeline should be similar in all ways
to existing dataset bending stiffness / soils / lay details
Dominant aspect of
potential feature:
Radius
Change of angle

Natural Buckle Triggers As-Laid Out-of-Straightness 4

What shape to select:

Arc / Half sine
Sine
SAFEBUCK give nondimensionalised
reference lengths for sine
curves

155.248

140

N .new

120

100
100
3

10

4.5

10

4000

10

5.5

10

E.new

10

6000

0.5
0.4

ppz

0.2

0
0.10

4.9

10
4900

4.95

10

10
Cumul z

5.05

10

WJstart

4993.9
5.1

5100

10

Recap

Buckle terminology.
Consideration of all potential buckle triggers:
Initiation forces.
Post buckle behaviour.
Sense check of FEA results.
Reality check of potential design.