Proceedings of OMAE04
23
rd
International Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering
June 20-25, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
OMAE2004-51200
THE STRESS ANALYSIS AND RESIDUAL STRESS EVALUATION OF
PRESSURE ARMOUR LAYERS IN FLEXIBLE PIPES USING
3D FINITE ELEMENT MODELS
Upul. S. Fernando
School of Engineering, Sheffi eld Hal lam
University, Pond Street, Sheffield, S1 1WB, UK.
Zhimin. Tan
Wellstream International ltd., Houston, Texas,
USA.
Terry. Sheldrake
Wellstream International ltd., Wincombl ee
Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
Richard. Clements
Wellstream International ltd., Wincombl ee
Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
ABSTRACT
A pressure armour layer is an essential feature of un-bonded flexible pipes. The layer is made of an inter-locked
helically wound metal wire of profiled section, whose primary use is to provide the circumferential strength of the
pipe to resist internal pressure. The general design philosophy of the layer is defined in API 17J in terms of the
stress utilisation factor that specifies the maximum allowable average hoop stress in the layer, which is
conventionally produced by the elastic stress analysis. During pressure armour layer manufacturing (a cold forming
process), the armour wire is however subjected to a sequence of cyclic bending and twisting deformations which
take it beyond its material elastic limit. This paper presents FE structure models for investigating the detailed local
and residual stress variation during the forming process, and the subsequent stress relaxation as a result of the
factory acceptance test (FAT). A study case is presented for illustrating the typical stress and strain behaviour after
FAT pressurization. The paper also introduces X-ray diffraction technology as a method for residual stress
measurement on full scale samples.
INTRODUCTION
Un-bonded flexible pipes are used in the oil and
gas industry to transport petroleum products
between the static and moving offshore
installations. In general, the pipe systems are
engineered to meet the specific requirements of
individual service condition. A Wellstream
flexible pipe structure is depicted in Figure 1,
which typically consists of:
inner carcass
barrier
pressure armour
two helically wound tensile armour layers
anti-wear layers
outer sheath.
The flexible pipes used in offshore
applications are subjected to a highly complex
and randomly variable dynamic loading
history, which causes the pipe to bend, twist
and axially deform while it was subjected to
high internal and external pressures. An
accurate knowledge of the component stress
state is essential for assessing the pipe
structural integrity, and assuring economic
and safe maintenance of offshore systems.
The pressure armour layer, Flexlok,
consists of an inter-locked helically wound
carbon steel wire of profiled cross-section.
This layer is designed to provide the primary
circumferential strength of the pipe to resist
internal pressure. The wire is wrapped onto
Proceedings of OMAE04
23rd International Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering
June 20-25, 2004, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
OMAE2004-51200
PIPE TOC
2 Copyright 2004 by ASME
pipe by cold forming processes. During the cold
forming, the wire experiences several cyclic
bending and twisting events with deformation
beyond the material's yield point. Consequently, a
considerable residual stress would present in the
formed Flexlok wire after it is wrapped onto the
pipe.
Figure 1 The layered structure of the
Wellstream flexible pipe
Residual stresses that are introduced by plastic
deformation could have a significant influence on
fatigue behaviour. Tensile residual stress when
superimposed with the applied dynamic load,
increase the mean stress of fatigue cycle.
Consequently, the tensile residual stress would be
detrimental in promoting local plastic deformation
and thereby reducing fatigue life [1,2]. The
influence of the Flexlok residual stress will be
investigated in this paper.
REVIEW OF THE PRESSURE ARMOUR
DESIGN ANALYSIS
According to flexible pipe design philosophy, the
strength of the un-bonded flexible pipe is primarily
determined by the layers of pressure and tensile
armour, i.e. Flexlok and Flextensile. Non-
metallic layers are considered essential for the pipe
integrity although their contribution to the strength
of the pipe is insignificant. For this reason,
accurate design of the Flexlok and Flextensile
layers is considered critical for safe performance
and ensuring the integrity of a flexible riser for the
dynamic service applications. The analysis
presented in this paper is concerned only with
the Flexlok layer.
Un-bonded flexible pipes are designed and
analysed in accordance with the relevant API
standards. The design of Flexlok is covered in
the API Specification 17J [3] which defines
the design guidelines and technical
requirements for safe, dimensionally and
functionally interchangeable un-bonded
flexible pipes. The same API specification
also defines the minimum system
requirements; design loading cases for
analyses; minimum material requirements and
finished product acceptance criteria. The
accountability of residual stress in the
material is covered in the API specification
17B [4]. It is generally believed that safe pipe
design is guaranteed by complying with API
specifications 17J and 17B.
For the design of pressure armour, the API
Specification proposes the use of stress
utilization which is the ratio of average
hoop stress in the layer and the structural
capacity of the material. The structural
capacity shall be either the yield strength or
90% of the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of
the wire material, whereby the average stress
is to be calculated based on distributing the
total layer load uniformly over all wires in the
layer.
According to API 17J , the utilization of the
Flexlok is limited by the operation and
service conditions. However for the case of
Normal recurrent operation, the utilization
can be up to 0.55, whilst for the case of
Normal extreme operation, the utilization can
be up to 0.85. For the Factory Acceptance
Test (FAT) condition, a maximum utilization
of 0.91 is given. The API Specification does
not define or recommend any specific
analytical or numerical tools for evaluation of
the utilisation factor, nor does it give any
recommendation for stress analysis or strain
calculations.
During pipe manufacture, the Flexlok wire
experiences severe plastic deformation
coupled with a rather complicated stress-
strain history as it undergoes a sequence of
bending and twisting events. Due to practical
difficulties no post-deformation stress relief
operation can be conducted after the wire has
been wrapped to the pipe. Stress analysis of
Anti Wear
Tapes
Flexshield
Flexlok
Pressure armour layer
Flextensile
Tensile armour layers
PVDF Tube
Flexbarrier
Inner Carcass
Flexbdy
3 Copyright 2004 by ASME
pressure armour is usually performed considering
only the applied load conditions; the plastic
deformation introduced during the wire forming
process is rarely considered. It is believed that the
pre-stress introduced in the Flexlok wire during
the manufacture of the pipe would significantly
influence the stress distribution and the magnitude
of the local stress in the wire. The local stress
distribution in the Flexlok layer is usually obtained
from FE analysis. Axisymmetric wire models are
commonly used since they permit the modelling of
the interaction of neighbouring wires while
conforming to the pipe structure, however, an
accurate assessment of the effect of
aforementioned residual stress is not feasible with
such models.
In this paper, a new method of stress analysis is
presented for the Flexlok layer. The method uses
an FE 3D wire model and allows the local stress
distribution in the wire to be evaluated considering
the residual stress induced in the wire during the
pipe manufacturing. The method is demonstrated
for a typical Flexlok profile. The results from the
3D model are compared with those from the 2D
axisymmetric analysis.
Figure 2 The section profile of the Flexlok layer
AXISYMMETRIC STRESS ANALYSIS
The single layer of inter-locked Flexlok wire is
depicted in Figure 2. The corresponding
axisymmetric FE model of the Flexlok layer is
shown in Figure 3. The model represents a single
wrapped wire constructed using two
complementary halves of the neighbouring wraps.
The profile details were modelled as accurately as
possible representing all the internal and external
corners. For conservatism, the axisymmetric
internal pressure loading arrangement is applied
while the squeezing pressure on the external
surface was ignored. The degrees of freedom
1, 2 and 3 of the model represents the radial,
axial and circumferential (hoop) directions of
the pipe, respectively.
The axisymmetric FE mesh comprised 2854
nodes and 884 elements and was constructed
using 8-node (biquadratic) axisymmetric solid
elements with an average characteristic mesh
length of 0.52 mm. This size of mesh was
found to give results which are insensitive to
mesh size.
Figure 3 The axisymmetric FE mesh and
internal pressure loading
During the analysis, the nodes at points P and
R of the model were constrained in the axial
direction (degree of freedom 2). Both the
radial and axial displacements of all nodes on
edge PQ were equated to that of the
corresponding nodes on edge RS, ensuring
the compatibility and continuity of the model
in the axial direction of the pipe. These
constraints ensured that the two half wires of
the model behaved as a single wire. The
contact regions between the nubs and valleys
of the two wire halves along the surfaces
ABCDE and FGHIJ were modelled for finite
sliding, thus allowing separation, sliding and
rotation of the contact surfaces. Friction has
not been considered at the contacts.
Figure 4 illustrates the typically distributions
of the von Mises and the hoop stresses over
the Flexlok wire cross-section. The wire is
subjected to the internal pressure under the
FAT condition (P =64.2 MPa). It is noted
that the nub and valley are forced into contact
under the applied pressure; however, no
Internal Pressure Loading
P
R
3
1
2
Degrees of
Freedom
Q
C
J
G
H
I
F
A
B
E
D
S
4 Copyright 2004 by ASME
significant stress concentration is seen at the inner
corner regions of the wire. Owing to the complex
cross-section profile, the stress distributions are no
longer uniform as assumed in the elastic stress
analysis. The maximum and minimum von Mises
stresses are 786 MPa and 621 MPa respectively.
The corresponding maximum and minimum hoop
stresses are 746 MPa and 598 MPa. The average
hoop stress is 664 MPa, and the API utilisation is
0.60. This is considerably smaller than the
maximum allowable utilisation 0.91 given by API
specification. The localised maximum von Mises
stress is less than 0.2% proof stress 896 MPa.
(a) von-Mises stress distribution
(b) Circumferential stress distribution
Figure 4 The stress distribution in Flexlok
using axisymmetric stress analysis
THE 3-D WIRE MODEL
The FE model used for 3-D stress analysis is
shown in Figure 5. The model is an extension of
the axisymmetric model described in previous
section. As in the case of the axisymmetric model,
a single wire strand was modelled using the two
complementary halves of the neighbouring wires.
A short length of wire was considered for the
model so as to limit the magnitudes of the nodal
displacements.
Figure 5 The 3-D finite element model
The total FE mesh comprised 60396 nodes
and 9660 elements. The mesh was
constructed using the 8-node linear-brick
incompatible elements. These are first order
elements which are enhanced by incompatible
modes that improve the bending response of
the model. Because of the added internal
degrees-of-freedom caused by the
incompatible modes, the elements are
significantly more flexible in terms of
bending than the regular first-order
displacement elements [5]. The average
characteristic element length of the mesh was
0.56 mm. The reference Cartesian co-ordinate
system, 1-2-3, shown in figure 5, represents
the thickness, the width and the axial
directions of the wire respectively.
To simulate the forming of the wire during
the pipe manufacturing process, the wire
model was deformed by bending it in both the
in-plane (1-2 plane) and the out-of plane (2-3
plane) directions. This was achieved by
prescribing appropriate nodal displacements
at the right edge of the model whilst keeping
the left edge rigidly restrained. In order to
avoid high stress localisation during the
application of boundary conditions, the
elements at each end of the wire model was
defined with a more rigid material i.e. E =10
3
GPa, thus preventing the edge elements being
subjected to plastic deformation.
The true wire material properties were
assigned to all the middle elements. In order
to ensure the displacement compatibility and
continuity of the model in the length direction
of the pipe, all three displacements (degrees
of freedom 1, 2 and 3) of all nodes on the
edge surface AB were equated to that of the
corresponding nodes on the edge surface PQ
(see Figure 5).
A P
B
Q
5 Copyright 2004 by ASME
FORMING OF THE WIRE DURING
MANUFACTURING OF PIPES
The Flexlok wires are subjected to a complex
straining process during the manufacturing of the
pipe. The three key phases of the wire forming
process can be identified. In phase one, the as-
received wire from the vendor's coils are subjected
to a reeling process which involves successive
bending of the wire through a series of rollers. In
phase two, the wire is bent in the lateral plane
through a set of pyramid rollers to form the helix
angle required in the pipe. In phase three, the
formed wire is wrapped onto the pipe. Forming
phases 2 and 3 are executed using the Flexlok
machine during the pipe manufacturing process.
During the process, the Flexlok wire is subjected
to bending radii ranging from less than 80 mm up
to the layer diameter.
THE STRESS-STRAIN BEHAVIOUR OF
FLEXLOK MATERIAL
The present FE study encompasses the possible
elastic-plastic deformation of the Flexlok and as
such, an accurate knowledge of the Flexlok
material elastic-plastic deformation behaviour was
required for the analysis. To this end, tensile tests
were performed on the Flexlok material to obtain
the material stress-strain curve. The static material
properties are given in Table 1:
Table 1: The stress-strain properties of Flexlok
Engineering
UTS
[MPa]
Engineering
Strain at
fracture
0.2%
Proof
True
Stress
[MPa]
Fracture
True
Stress
[MPa]
1100 11% 896 1702
For moderate plastic strains (strain below 5%) the
material stress-strain curve can be expressed using
a power function [6] as given below
n
K E
1
+ =