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Proceedings of the ASME2017 36th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering
OMAE2017
June 25-30, 2017, Trondheim, Norway
OMAE2017-61046
UPHEAVAL BUCKLING
Early stage design for upheaval buckling of buried pipelines H
is often done following the analytical solution presented by nf nf su,ave su,ave
Palmer et al. (1990). This method was developed by solving the
beam bending equation for a range of pipeline properties and peak P peak D P
nondimensionalising the results to provide estimates of the
uniform download required (i.e. pipeline weight plus burial Figure 2. Limit equilibrium mechanisms: (a) Drained; (b)
cover resistance) to prevent buckling. The approach assumes that Undrained
buckling will occur in the vertical direction and that an
imperfection in the pipeline geometry (in a global sense) is UPLIFT RESISTANCE OF BURIED PIPELINES
present following a sinusoidal shape. The resulting design curve Methods for calculating the uplift resistance of a buried pipe
is presented in terms of nondimensional download and are usually based on limit analysis, limit equilibrium or finite
imperfection length as: element analyses. For undrained conditions, these methods
generally provide similar calculated resistances, as shown for
instance by Merifield et al. (2001). However, for drained
= (1)
2 conditions, substantial variations occur between the different
methods, owing to the effect of flow rule of drained materials at
failure. The various solution methods are contrasted in the
following section.
= (2)
The ability of limit analysis to accurately calculate a solution
to a given problem is predicated on the assumption of associated
where is the nondimensional download, is the flow of the material at failure (i.e. the plastic strain increments
nondimensional imperfection length, (= + ) is the are normal to the yield surface in conjugate stress space). Since
under undrained conditions associated flow is generally true,
download force per unit length, is the effective weight of the
limit analysis approaches provide rigorous upper and lower
pipeline, is the uplift resistance provided by the soil, EI is the
bounds on the load at failure for a given set of soil properties.
flexural rigidity of the pipeline, is the effective axial force, L For this study, finite element limit analysis (FELA) was used
is the imperfection wavelength and is the imperfection height. within the commercially available software, OptumG2
The resulting design curve given by Palmer et al. (1990) is (OptumCE, 2017) to calculate the collapse loads, and the mean
shown on Figure 1. States that lie above the line are stable and of the upper and lower bound results are presented throughout.
states below the line are susceptible to upheaval buckling. For each run case, 5000 elements were used with 5 remeshing
steps.
On the other hand, under drained conditions associated flow
does not generally hold; and the use of limit analysis will
significantly overestimate the uplift resistance of buried
= (9)
UPHEAVAL BUCKLING
To illustrate the implications of these findings on the design
of buried pipelines, a simplified design example is useful to show
how the uplift behaviour influenced by drainage might affect
decision-making for pipeline burial. Table 2 lists relevant
pipeline properties for this exercise, which represent feasible
operating conditions in practice. The size of the vertical out-of-
straightness feature, /D, is taken to be a variable. This parameter
can be determined from surveys of a pipeline after laying and
before backfilling. The required backfill cover depth may be
selected based on the size of out of straightness (OOS) features,
defined by /D. Figure 7 shows the results for the adopted
Figure 6. Contours of months required to achieve 90% excess parameters for both the undrained and drained resistance as well
pore pressure dissipation at pipeline interface as the corresponding download factor ratios for each of the two
resistances. These results assume that the hypothetical
Osman and Randolph (2012) presented a closed-form imperfection wavelength, L, is linearly related to the vertical
analytical solution for consolidation around a laterally loaded imperfection height, , such that the ratio of /L is kept constant
pile, which is analogous to a buried pipeline undergoing at 100.
sustained uplift loading. The authors show the form of the For the scenario indicated on Figure 7, upheaval buckling is
normalised excess pore pressure dissipation curve for an element predicted for vertical imperfection heights, /D, between 0.91
of soil at the pile/pipe interface is relatively invariant over a and 1.3 at startup, which corresponds to undrained failure.
range of soil properties and zones of influence. Although the However, in this case there is also a wider range of potential
dissipation at the pipe interface does not exactly capture the pipeline geometries (i.e. imperfection heights) from about 0.56
drainage behaviour of the relevant failure mechanism for this to 1.74 for which upheaval buckling could occur at some later
case, this does provide some insight into the relevant timeframe. stage, once drainage is able to occur over the failure mechanism.
This simplified example highlights the need to consider the full
range of upheaval buckling scenarios that could occur over the
life of a pipeline system, which include variation in potential soil
response, e.g. drainage.
REFERENCES
DNV (2007). Global buckling of submarine pipelines: Structural
/D = 0.56 design due to high temperature/high pressure,
L Recommended Practice F110, October 2007. Oslo, Norway:
No UHB Det Norske Veritas.
Drescher, A. & Detournay, E. (1993). Limit load in translational
/D = 0.91
failure mechanisms for associative and non-associative
materials. Gotechnique 43 (3), 443-456.
Houlsby, G.T. & Puzrin, A.M. (1999). The bearing capacity of a
/D = 1.3
strip footing on clay under combined loading. Proc. R. Soc.
UHB Lond. A. 455, 893-916.
Krabbenhoft, K., Karim, M. R., Lyamin, A. V., & Sloan, S. W.
(2012). Associated computational plasticity schemes for
nonassociated frictional materials. International Journal for
/D = 1.74
L Numerical Methods in Engineering, 90 (9), 1089-1117.
Martin, C. M., & White, D. J. (2012). Limit analysis of the
undrained bearing capacity of offshore pipelines.
Gotechnique, 62(9), 847-863.
Merifield, R.S., Sloan, S.W. and Yu, H.S. 2001. Stability of plate
anchors in undrained clay. Gotechnique 51 (2), 141-153.
OptumCE (2017). OptumG2. http://www.optumce.com/.
Figure 7. Comparison of undrained and drained results Osman, A.S. and Randolph, M.F. 2012. Analytical Solution for
compared to Palmer et al. (1990) design approach the Consolidation around a Laterally Loaded Pile. Int. Jour.
of Mechanics 12 (3), 199-208.
CONCLUSIONS Palmer, A. C., Ellinas, C. P., Richards, D. M. & Guijt, J. (1990).
The uplift resistance of buried pipelines has been explored Design of pipelines against upheaval buckling. Proc.
using rational sets of soil properties for normally consolidated Offshore Technology Conf., Houston, TX, paper OTC 6335.
soils, considering both drained and undrained conditions. For Schofield, A.N. and Wroth, C.P. 1968. Critical State Soil
soils with relatively low friction angles, the undrained resistance Mechanics. McGraw-Hill.
is generally lower than the drained resistance; however as Tom, J.G. and White, D.J. 2017. Drained bearing capacity of
friction angle increases, the drained resistance becomes lower shallowly embedded pipelines. Manuscript in preparation.
than the undrained resistance. Both the undrained and drained White, D.J., Cheuk, C.Y. and Bolton, M.D. 2008. The uplift
resistance should be checked in situations where the uplift load resistance of pipes and plate anchors buried in sand.
may be sustained for some time, as illustrated by a design Gotechnique 58 (10), 771-779.
example using typical pipeline parameters.