Buckle propagation of offshore pipelines under external

pressure
Shunfeng Gong, Bin Sun, Sheng Bao
*
, Yong Bai
Institute of Structural Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 13 April 2012
Received in revised form 27 August 2012
Accepted 12 October 2012
Keywords:
Offshore pipeline
Buckle propagation
Collapse
External pressure
a b s t r a c t
Accidental damage of offshore pipelines in the form of local
buckles induced by excessive bending deformation during deep-
water installation may severely lead to local collapse of the tube
and consequent buckle propagation along the pipeline. The
present paper describes experimental and numerical research
conducted to predict the magnitude of buckle propagation pres-
sure of offshore pipelines under external pressure. The experi-
ments of buckle propagation for pipe specimens with different
initial geometric imperfections using 316 grade stainless steel
tubes are carried out under quasi-static steady-state conditions in
a sealed hyperbaric chamber. The stressstrain characteristics in
the axial tensile test are measured for the tube material, and then
used to numerically calculate the buckle propagation pressure of
the pipe. The comparisons between experimental and numerical
results are conducted to establish the precise numerical simulation
technique. Based upon experimental and extensive numerical
results, a more reasonable empirical formula for buckle propaga-
tion pressure of offshore pipeline with various values of diameter-
to-thickness ratio as well as different strain hardening modulus
and yield stress is proposed.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In recent years, the increasing demand for oil and natural gas resources has prompted the industry
to extend exploration and production to deepwater or ultra-deepwater regions. Pipelines play a very
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 86 571 88208728.
E-mail address: longtubao@zju.edu.cn (S. Bao).
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Marine Structures
j ournal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/
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0951-8339/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marstruc.2012.10.006
Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130
important role in these challenging activities, and are the most efcient and economical means of
gathering and transporting oil and natural gas fromsubsea wells to offshore or coastal storage facilities.
The current maximum laying water depth has exceeded 3000 m [1], and with ever increasing water
depths, the pipes have to be designed to withstand the high loads dictated by the extreme water depth
during installation as the pipeline is empty and not subject to any internal pressure. Accordingly, the
development of higher strength and toughness steel pipes with thicker wall is required to resist
ambient hydrostatic pressure. In general, the diameter-to-thickness ratios (D/t) of offshore pipeline
range from 10 to 60. However, for deepwater scenarios, the pipe with a value of D/t ranging from 10 to
35 is more suitable. In addition, the yield stress of steel for typical offshore pipelines is commonly
between 276 and 448 MPa.
Local buckle is prone to occur in offshore pipelines due to excessive bending deformation nearby
the touch-down point in the process of deepwater installation. If the external hydrostatic pressure is
high enough, the buckle could catastrophically propagate along the pipelines, or even threaten their
structural integrity [2,3]. The lowest pressure required to sustain the buckle propagation, is referred to
as the propagation pressure P
p
, which is a characteristic pressure of the pipe and only 15% to 30% of
collapse pressure P
co
of the intact pipe. In general, collapse pressure replaced by propagation pressure
to guide the design of offshore pipeline is deemed to be very conservative and uneconomical. There-
fore, a better choice is to install buckle arrestors at regular intervals along the pipeline, with the
purpose of conning the extent of pipeline damage to a limited length between two adjacent arrestors.
Buckle arrestors are the most commonly used devices that locally increase the wall bending rigidity of
the pipe in the circumferential direction, and thus provide an obstacle in the path of the propagating
buckle.
There are many different types of arrestors presented, respectively, by Johns et al. [4], and Kyr-
iakides and Babcock [5]. For deepwater applications, the integral buckle arrestor with superior ef-
ciency is preferred to weld on to the pipe. It consists of a ring with certain length that has the same
internal diameter but is thicker than the pipe. The modied empirical design formula for arrestor
efciency is proposed by Lee et al. [6] based on extensive experimental and numerical results. Using
Nomenclature
D tube outer diameter
E Youngs modulus
E
0
strain hardening modulus
J
2
second invariant of deviatoric stress tensor
n RambergOsgood hardening parameter
P
co
collapse pressure
P
p
buckle propagation pressure
t tube wall thickness
D/t diameter-to-thickness ratio of the tube
V
0
initial internal volume of the tube
dV volume change of the tube
w
0
initial imperfection
x, y, z coordinates
D
0
imperfection amplitude, D
0
(D
max
D
min
)/(D
max
D
min
)
strain
q angular coordinate
n Poissons ratio
s stress
s
0
API yield stress (0.5% strain offset)
s
y
RambergOsgood yield parameter
a strain hardening parameter, a E/E
0
S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 116
this formula to design buckle arrestors should predetermine buckle propagation pressure of the pipe.
In the past few decades, many researchers have addressed in such predictions and put forth some
empirical formula determined from theoretical and experimental results.
Palmer and Martin [3] rstly put forth an equation for propagation pressure as a function of both
diameter-to-thickness ratio D/t and material yield stress s
0
based on the assumptions of the defor-
mation energy of the collapsed pipe cross-section equating to the work done by external pressure, and
rigid-perfectly plastic material behavior of the pipe,
P
P
s
0
p
_
t
D
_
2
: (1)
The results underestimated the observed values of tests in that the mode of deformation considered
is purely inextensional so as to all deformation is assumed to be concentrated on four plastic hinges
equally spaced around the perimeter, and the surface stretching and strain hardening of the pipe are
neglected, thus it is only suitable for thin-walled pipes with larger values of D/t. As to deepwater thick-
walled pipes, a propagating buckle will inevitably result in plastic and extensional circumferential
deformations as well as surface stretching.
Johns et al. [4] rstly conducted the experimental studies on the arresting capability of different
types of buckle arrestors conceived to stop a propagating buckle along the pipeline. Based upon the
experimental results of the pipes with the values of D/t ranging from21 to 71, an empirical formula was
proposed to evaluate the propagation pressure as follows:
P
P
s
0
6
_
2t
D
_
2:5
: (2)
The dynamic behavior of a propagating buckle for the purpose of designing effective arresting
devices was initially investigated through experiments by Kyriakides and Babcock [7], who subse-
quently implemented theoretical study in association with experimental results for aluminum tubes
and steel alloy tubes to develop an empirical formula for buckle propagation pressure of offshore
pipeline, taking into account the effects of post-yield characteristics of the pipe material behavior
represented by the strain hardening modulus E
0
and geometric parameter represented by the
diameter-to-thickness ratio D/t of the pipe [8, 9],
P
P
s
0

_
10:7 0:54
_
E
0
s
0
___
t
D
_
2:25
: (3)
The theoretical study was conducted to predict the propagation pressure of offshore pipeline based
on internal energy dissipation of a quadrant of ring model including the inuence of the material strain
hardening behavior by Steel and Spence [10], which developed the following expression to evaluate the
propagation pressure through some simplied assumptions,
P
P
s
0

p
4
_
1:0 2:07
_
E
0
s
0
_
0:12
_
2t
D
_
0:35
__
2t
D
_
2
: (4)
DNV [11] in the Offshore Standard DNV-OS-F101 dened the calculating expression of the propa-
gation pressure for the pipe with the values of D/t less than 45 as follows:
P
P
s
0
35
_
t
D
_
2:5
: (5)
Similarly, API [12] in the Offshore Pipeline Criterion RP 1111 recommended the following formula
for the propagation pressure,
P
P
s
0
24
_
t
D
_
2:4
: (6)
S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 117
Lately, Albernami et al. [13] proposed a modication to the lower bound solution of Eq. (1) by
accounting for the circumferential membrane and exural effects in the pipe wall, and obtained the
following expression:
P
P
s
0
1:193
_
p
_
t
D
_
2
_
: (7)
Through nite element analysis they further discovered that a faceted pipe has a substantial
increase in initiation and propagation buckling capacities in contrast with the cylindrical pipe with the
same value of D/t.
The indeedgreat differences exist inpredicting the buckle propagationpressures of offshore pipeline
fromthe foregoing formula. The theoretical study [3,810] baseduponthe ring model generallyneglects
the effects of stretching and bending along the length of the proles of propagation, and entirely
concentrates on the ring-bending. In addition, the results predicted fromEqs. (2), (5) and (6) are almost
very close for the values of D/t larger than 35. However, the drawbacks are very obvious as these
equations only take into account the diameter-to-thickness ratio and overlook the post-yield charac-
teristics of the pipe material behavior. Especially for the pipes with the values of D/t less than 35, the
plastic buckle will be predominant. Therefore, a more reasonable empirical formula for predicting the
bucklepropagationpressure of offshorepipelines withvarious values of D/t shouldbe developedfurther.
The numerical simulation is no doubt a very effective means to predict the buckle propagation
pressure for offshore pipelines. Jensen [14] rstly carried out theoretical and numerical study for a long
circular cylindrical shell to obtain the propagation pressure based on thin shell theory and small strain
approximation. The comparison of the calculated results for different elasticplastic material
descriptions shows that the J
2
ow theory [15] predictions of propagation pressure are in better
agreement with the experimental results. Dyau and Kyriakides [16] systematically reviewed the
experimental aspects of propagation pressure of the tubes, then established a numerical analysis
model based upon the Sanders nonlinear shell kinematics with small strains and large displacements,
and the elasticplastic material behavior was modeled through the J
2
ow theory [15] with isotropic
strain hardening. The results as compared with experimental values from small-scale aluminum tubes
and steel tubes with the values of D/t between 18.2 and 37.2 showthat the proposed numerical analysis
method may provide good estimates of the propagation pressure. Pasqualino and Estefen [17] devel-
oped a three-dimensional model based on the thin shell theory proposed by Sanders [18] with nite
strains and nite displacements to predict the propagation pressure of deepwater pipelines, and the
equilibrium equations were solved numerically using the nite difference method combined with the
explicit dynamic relaxation technique. The correlation between numerical and experimental results for
six small-scale steel pipe models with the values of D/t, respectively, equal to 16, 21 and 24 presented
relatively good agreements. Xue and Hoo Fatt [19], respectively, conducted rigid-plastic theoretical
analysis and nite element analysis using the software ABAQUS for the steady-state buckle propagation
scenario in a corroded pipeline subjected to external hydrostatic pressure, and revealed the buckle
propagation pressure and the buckling mode depending on the depth and angular extent of the
corrosion. Furthermore, the buckle propagation phenomenon in pipe-in-pipe systems under external
pressure was studied through combined experimental and analytical efforts by Kyriakides [20], and
Kyriakides and Vogler [21], which put forth an empirical formula for propagation pressure of the
system and design recommendations.
Lately, in combination with experiments and theoretical analyses, Zara [22] investigated buckling
propagation and failure causes of the pressurized double-piping system under the thermo-
conditioning installation in the sewage treatment plant. Showkati and Shahandeh [23] carried out
the experimental studies on the buckling behavior of ring-stiffened thin-walled pipelines under
external hydrostatic pressure, and appraised the inuence of ring stiffeners on buckling strength,
buckling propagation, development of yield line and nal collapse of the pipeline. In association with
practical pipe-laying circumstances, the buckling responses of thick-walled tubes under complicated
load combinations were systematically investigated by Gong et al. [24,25].
In the present study, the buckle propagation experiments of steel pipes with the value of D/t equal
to 15 are conducted in a sealed hyperbaric chamber to identify the mechanism of a propagating buckle
S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 118
in a long thick-walled pipe, which is suited to deepwater pipelines. In combination with experimental
observations and results, a three-dimensional nite element model for the experimental steel pipe
within the frame of ABAQUS is developed to model the buckle propagation phenomenon. The nite
element model is validated by comparing numerical results with experimental observations. Subse-
quently, the parametric analysis for the propagation pressure is performed. Based on the extensive
numerical simulations and experimental results, a more reasonable empirical formula for predicting
the buckle propagation pressure of offshore pipeline is proposed taking into account geometric
parameter with the values of D/t between 10 and 60, and material properties such as yield stress s
0
and
strain hardening modulus E
0
.
2. Experiments
2.1. Experimental set-up and procedure
The purpose of this experiment is to initiate a propagating buckle in a long thick-walled pipe under
quasi-static steady-state conditions to measure the propagation pressure and observe the post-
buckling conguration of the pipe. For a propagating buckle to occur in a long pipe, two important
conditions are necessary. One is that the exterior surface of the pipe has to be subjected to high
enough external pressure, and the other is that a large initial geometric imperfection at one end of the
pipe should be imposed to initiate the propagating buckle. The experiments are conducted in
a specially designed and fabricated pressure cylinder shown in Fig. 1(a). The cylinder has an inner
diameter of 0.2 m and a length of 1.75 m, and its work pressure may attain 50 MPa. The external
pressure applied on the pipe specimen is achieved by using a single-piston manual pump shown in
Fig. 1(b) to pressurize water into the cylinder, in which the pressure is real-time monitored by an
electrical transducer shown in Fig. 1(c) as well as the digital pressure gage shown in Fig. 1(b) with
a precision of 0.01 MPa.
Fig. 1. Experimental facility.
S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 119
A section of pipe, welded two solid end-plugs on each end, usually more than 20 diameters long, is
completely sealed at one end and placed into a stiff pressure cylinder, and the other end with a hole in
the end-plug is connected with a container placed on the electronic scale through a rigid conduit, as
shown in Fig. 1(d) and (e). Therefore, the internal pressure of the pipe specimen is all along maintained
atmospheric pressure. The pressure cylinder, container, pipe specimen, and rigid conduit are
completely lled with water. It is ensured by vertically placing the pressure cylinder in a specially built
steel box xed at the underground base with 2.0 mdepth and venting water at the upper hole in the lid.
The gap between pressure cylinder and steel box is lled up with ne sand so as to guarantee the
stability of experimental set-up. The watertight test of the system is conducted by pressurizing water
into the cylinder, and keeping a relatively long time and then observing the pressure change inside the
cylinder through the digital pressure gage. To initiate a propagating buckle under external pressure, the
pipe specimen over a short length about 23 diameters away from the end-plug is intentionally
inicted to form a dent.
In the process of experiments, the pumping rate is always maintained at a relatively low, constant
velocity about 1.0 MPa per minute, therefore any material rate effects may be negligible. Along with
gradual increase of the pressure in the cylinder, local collapse is sure to rstly occur at the imperfection,
which will lead to a sudden drop of the pressure in the cylinder to the level below the buckle prop-
agation pressure of the pipe. Then, the buckle will gradually spread along the length while the pressure
in the cylinder remains at P
p
. From a hole in the upper end-plug of the pipe specimen the displaced
water is directed to the container, the weight variation in the electronic scale is proportional to the
displaced water and therefore to the variation of the specimen inner volume. A schematic diagram of
the experimental apparatus assembly is shown in Fig. 2.
2.2. Experimental results
The experiments are carried out using seamless stainless steel tubes, and the steel grade is SS316,
which has a very good elongation. In such case, a propagating buckle will not result in fracturing of the
wall or ooding of the tube, and the buckle can be propagated in tubes with much lower values of D/t.
Therefore, the steel pipes with lower diameter-to-thickness ratio (D/t) and larger initial geometric
imperfection can be adopted in experiments. The geometric characteristics of the pipes tested as well
Pressure cylinder
Pipe specimen
Initial imperfection
End-plug
Lid
Pressure gage
Transducer
Electronic scale
Container
Water pump
Rigid conduit
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of experimental apparatus.
S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 120
as their propagation pressures measured are listed in Table 1. The local collapsed and nal deformed
congurations of the steel pipe specimen No. 2 are shown in Fig. 3, and the pipe after buckle propa-
gation is completely attened. In addition, the axial test coupon in Fig. 4 cut from the pipe is used to
measure the engineering stressstrain response of the material. The measured stressstrain response
is further transformed into true stresslogarithmic strain curve, as shown in Fig. 5. The elastic modulus
E of the material is 188.9 GPa. The API [26] denition of yield stress s
0
, i.e., the stress at a strain of 0.005,
is used.
To conveniently conduct numerical simulation for different strain hardening parameter in pre-
dicting the propagation pressure, it is required a good representation of the material stressstrain
behavior for the complete strain range of interest. Apparently, a bilinear approximation of the stress
strain behavior is too rough. A more accurate, three-parameter t of the stressstrain behavior is
provided by the well-known RambergOsgood model [15] given by

s
E
_
1
3
7

s
s
y

n1
_
: (8)
Table 1
Geometric parameters and experimental results
No. L (mm) D (mm) t (mm) D/t D
0
P
co
(MPa) P
p
(MPa) s
0
(MPa) P
p
/s
0
10
3
1 1200 60.0 4.0 15 2.0% 27.6 12.3 319.2 38.5
2 1200 60.0 4.0 15 4.7% 21.4 11.6 319.2 36.3
Fig. 3. Deformed congurations of steel pipe specimen No. 2.
S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 121
where s
y
is the effective yield stress, and n is the material hardening parameter. This material model in
nature cannot t the typical experimental results for strain levels larger than 12%. Fig. 5 similarly
shows the tted stressstrain curve through Eq. (8). As can be seen, a good t is achieved for strain
levels less than 0.015. However, for higher strains, it will cause a larger deviation. Due to this inade-
quacy of Eq. (8), the following modication is adopted in subsequent parametric analyses. The Ram-
bergOsgood model is still adopted for strain levels less than 0.015. Whereas for strain levels larger
than 0.015, the stressstrain curve is approximated with a straight line having a slope given by
Fig. 4. Material property test.
0.00 0.03 0.06 0.09 0.12 0.15
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
/
M
P
a
Modified R-O Fit
R-O Fit
Experimental

Fig. 5. Measured and tted uniaxial stressstrain curves for SS316.

S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 122
E
0

ds
d

0:015

E
1
3
7
n

s
s
y

n1
: (9)
where E
0
, in fact, is the strain hardening modulus. The modied RO t is also drawn in Fig. 5, and is
seen to be very close to the experimental curve. The t parameters for the material SS316 are given as
s
y
291 MPa, n 10.1, E
0
2680 MPa.
3. Comparison of experimental and numerical results
3.1. Finite element model
A nite element model is particularly developed in parallel with the experimental effort
within the framework of ABAQUS to simulate numerically the quasi-static steady-state buckle
propagation scenarios in the steel pipe specimen No. 2 presented in Table 1 under external
pressure. The actual geometric characteristics and material behavior of the pipe are used to
establish the numerical model. A three-dimensional, eight-node brick element with incompat-
ible mode, C3D8I, is chosen to model the pipe. Since this type of element is enhanced by
incompatible modes to bending behavior, it is well suited for the present large deformation
problems [27,28].
The general geometric characteristics of the model are shown in Fig. 6. Guided by the experimental
observations, the deformation of the pipe cross-section is assumed to have two planes of symmetry,
namely, planes x-y and x-z. A local imperfection is added at the location of x 2D3D. This is the only
way of initiating local collapse without affecting subsequent buckle propagation. The tubes are
assumed to be circular and the wall thickness to be uniform along the length. The local imperfection in
the form of ovality is described in the following form:
Fig. 6. Mesh and imperfection of nite element model.
S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 123
w
0
q
_

_
D
0
_
D
2
_
exp
_
b
_
2:25D x
D
_
2
_
cos2q; x2:0D; 2:25D
D
0
_
D
2
_
cos 2q; x2:25D; 2:75D
D
0
_
D
2
_
exp
_
b
_
x 2:75D
D
_
2
_
cos 2q; x2:75D; 3:0D
: (10)
where w
0
is the radial displacement, q is the polar angular coordinate measured fromy axis, and x is the
axial coordinate. The imperfection parameters used are the initial ovality D
0
, and the constant b 0.5D,
which characterizes the extent of the imperfection.
The pipe model is discretized into 4 parts through the thickness, 20 parts around the quarter
circumference, and 240 parts along the length, which is found to be adequate through trial analysis.
The symmetrical boundary conditions are applied at planes x-y and x-z, i.e., in plane x-y, z-direction
displacement of the nodes is only constrained, and in plane x-z, y-direction displacement of the nodes
is only constrained. However, at both ends of the tube, all displacements of the nodes are xed.
Since only one quarter of the cross-section is analyzed, an imaginary rigid surface is set along plane
x-z using rigid elements (R3D4) to simulate the contact of inner surfaces of the tube wall. Contact
between the walls of the collapsing tube is modeled through the surface-based contact pair. In this
scheme, the rigid surface is dened as the specied master surface, and the inner surface of the tube
wall is dened as the slave surface. The contact direction is always normal to the master surface, and
Fig. 7. A sequence of deformed congurations for steel pipe specimen No. 2.
S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 124
the slave nodes are constrained not to penetrate into the master surface. In addition, the collapsing
walls of the tube do not allow separation after contact, and the hard contact and nite sliding options
are used.
The J
2
ow theory [15] of plasticity with isotropic strain hardening and nite deformation is
adopted to describe the elastoplastic behavior of the pipe material. The multi-linear approximations of
true stresslogarithmic strain curve and the modied RambergOsgood model are used to characterize
the material properties, respectively.
As similar calculations have been conducted by Kyriakides and Vogler [21], a volume controlled
loading procedure is adopted using the hydrostatic uid elements of ABAQUS (a combination of F3D3
and F3D4). This type of elements can indicate the change in volume inside a control region dened
around the structure. Thus, the pressure becomes an additional unknown while the volume change is
enforced as a constraint via the Lagrange multiplier methods.
3.2. Simulation of a propagating buckle
The pipe model is loaded by external pressure. Buckling and collapse are initiated by a small, local,
initial geometric imperfection in the neighborhood of x 0. The response of such systems often
exhibits limit load and turning point instabilities, thus Riks path-following method (arc length
method) is used to follow the loading history. Nlgeom option is also selected for this problem char-
acterized by several nonlinearities which severely varies during the loading history. An incremental
solution scheme with variable loading increments depending on the stage of the loading history is
developed empirically.
Fig. 7 shows that a sequence of deformed congurations of the steel pipe specimen No. 2 is
calculated by numerically simulating a propagating buckle. The main characteristics of the calculated
congurations are similar to those seen in the experiments shown in Fig. 3. The initial conguration of
the structure is identied by the numbered I. The conguration II represents a pipe of local collapse at
the region of imperfections. When the opposite walls of the pipe come into contact in conguration III,
the collapse is arrested locally and the buckle starts to propagate along the downstream pipe. The
conguration IV illustrates the prole of buckle propagation of such a pipe, and the area of the pipe wall
in contact is seen to have increased. Eventually, as the buckle propagation travels to both ends of the
pipe and has to be terminated, the pipe is completely attened in conguration V.
Fig. 8 shows experimental and calculated pressurechange in volume responses for steel pipe
specimen No. 2 (V
0
is the initial internal volume of the tube, and dV is the absolute value of the change
of volume evaluated for each deformed conguration). As can be seen in the gure, local collapse of the
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
V/V
0
P
/
M
P
a
Experiments
FEM(Multi-linear Model)
FEM(Modified R-O Model)
Fig. 8. Pressurechange in volume responses for steel pipe specimen No. 2.
S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 125
pipe results in a precipitous decrease in pressure, and the subsequent pressure plateau represents
steady-state propagation of the buckle. Finally, two ends of the pipe are engaged by the buckle, the
pressure in the closed vessel once again starts rising. It is noted that these responses have a very similar
varying trend. The predicted and experimental results for collapse pressure and buckle propagation
pressure are listed in Table 2. The errors are larger for the collapse pressure P
co
than ones for the
propagation pressure P
p
, because the collapse pressure is more sensitive to initial imperfections and
material properties of the tubes. In fact, it is unimportant in the present study and becomes negligible
for the buckle propagation. As to propagation pressure, the errors are minor and the maximum
difference is less than 8% for the specimen No. 2. However, for the specimen No. 1 listed in Table 1, the
maximum difference reduces to less than 3%. The sources of errors are mainly attributed to variations
of the tube thickness along the length, differences in material properties in the circumferential and
longitudinal directions, differences in material properties in tension and compression, etc. In addition,
the response calculated from the multi-linear approximation material model is compared to the one
obtained from the modied RO material model in Fig. 8. The predicted responses for two material
models are almost always identical, and the observed differences for collapse pressure and propagation
pressure listed in Table 2 are both less than 2%. Therefore, the modied RO model is suitably used to
conduct parametric study on buckle propagation pressure of the tube. In conclusion, it has been
demonstrated that the aforementioned numerical model may offer a very satisfactory prediction on the
buckle propagation of a long tube with various geometric characteristics and material properties.
4. Results and discussion
The validity of numerical model proposed in the present study has been demonstrated in the
foregoing section. In what follows, a parametric study of the propagation pressure is carried out
numerically in order to illustrate the inuence of different material parameters on the results and
establish a more reasonable empirical formula.
Previous research ndings have revealed that the propagation pressure is primarily related to yield
stress and post-yield characteristics of the pipe material behavior as well as diameter-to-thickness
ratio. The analyses are, respectively, performed for the pipe models based the parameters of
L 6096 mm, D304.8 mm (12 inch), E 206 GPa, n 0.3, D/t 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 22, 25, 30, 35, 40, 50
and 60, s
0
272, 350, 400 and 500 MPa, and the strain hardening parameter a E/E
0
25, 50, 10
2
, 10
3
and 10
4
. a 25 represents a very strong strain hardening material behavior, and a 10
4
represents the
elastic perfectly plastic case. If the nominal yield stress s
0
and the strain hardening parameter a are
given, using Eqs. (7) and (8) the RambergOsgood model parameters s
y
and n may be solved, thus the
stressstrain curve for the modied RambergOsgood model is completely determined, and then used
to model the pipe material behavior.
Fig. 9 shows the predicted propagation pressures including a total of 240 data points with varying
diameter-to-thickness ratio and material property through extensive numerical simulations based on
the software ABAQUS. It is clearly observed that for a given geometry, the tubes with smaller strain
hardening parameter a (stronger post-yield behavior) always possess larger propagation pressure, and
the effect of having a harder material on propagation pressure is essentially a shift of the straight line
upwards. Similarly, it is seen that the tubes with larger material yield stress s
0
characterize larger
propagation pressure. In addition, it is worth noting that for the tubes with smaller values of D/t, the
effect of yield stress is more pronounced compared with the case of larger values of D/t. The values of D/
t between 10 and 60 are carefully examined, because this is range of interest for pipeline application.
The predicted results for various values of D/t indicate that the propagation pressure is a power law
Table 2
Comparison between experimental and numerical results for specimen No. 2.
Parameter Experimental value FEM multi-linear model Difference FEM modied RO model Difference
P
co
(MPa) 21.4 25.8 17.05% 26.1 18.01%
P
p
(MPa) 11.6 12.4 6.45% 12.6 7.94%
S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 126
dependence on this parameter. Summarizing the above-mentioned results, the propagation pressure is
heavily affected by the strain hardening modulus E
0
and the yield stress s
0
. Therefore, it can be
concluded that the propagation pressure P
P
has a parametric behavior as follows:
P
P
s
0

_
a b
_
E
0
s
0
__
t
D
_
b
__
t
D
_
g
: (11)
where the coefcients a and b, and the exponents b and g are to be tted.
It is more useful for design purposes to have a simple, single equation for the propagation pressure.
Based upon the numerical results, the unknown parameters in Eq. (11) are determined by nonlinear
least-squares estimation procedures that used the LevenbergMarquardt algorithm. Accordingly, the
expression of propagation pressure can be written as:
P
P
s
0

_
23 13
_
E
0
s
0
__
t
D
___
t
D
_
2:4
(12)
All curves shown in Fig. 9 are calculated by Eq. (12), it is seen that these data points are very close to
the corresponding curve, the difference of results between numerical simulation and empirical
formula is within 10% other than a few data points, but all differences are all less than 12%.
10 20 30 40 50 60
0
1
10
100
P
p
/
M
P
a
D/t
1.01O
4
1.01O
3
1.01O
2
50
25

10 20 30 40 50 60
0
1
10
100
P
p
/
M
P
a
D/t
1.01O
4
1.01O
3
1.01O
2
50
25

MPa 272
0
MPa 350
0

10 20 30 40 50 60
0
1
10
100
P
p
/
M
P
a
D/t
1.01O
4
1.01O
3
1.01O
2
50
25

10 20 30 40 50 60
0
1
10
100
P
p
/
M
P
a
D/t
1.01O
4
1.01O
3
1.01O
2
50
25

MPa 400
0
MPa 500
0

a
b
c d
Fig. 9. Predicted propagation pressures as a function of (D/t) for various values of strain hardening factor and yield stress.
S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 127
Fig. 10 shows the comparison between the experimental results collected from previous limited
information and the predicted values via Eq. (12), the abscissa of data points is the calculated value of
Eq. (12), and the ordinate represents the corresponding experimental result. Most of the data points
locate at the vicinity of the diagonal line, and their differences are very small and within 10% other than
several exceptional data points. The good correlation between predicted and experimental results
validates the empirical expression and the proposed numerical simulation technique.
Illustrated in Fig. 11 is the propagation pressure of the tubes with varying values of D/t predicted
fromdifferent empirical formula. It is clearly shown that the predicted results through Eq. (4) proposed
by Steel and Spence [10] generate a relative larger deviation. For larger values of D/t, this empirical
formula overestimates the propagation pressure, whereas for lower D/t values, it contrarily underes-
timates the propagation pressure. For the tubes with the values of D/t larger than 35, the predicted
results from Eq. (5) [11], Eq. (6) [12] and Eq. (12) are comparatively consistent. However, the empirical
0 5 10 15 20
0
5
10
15
20
4 . 2
0
0 p
'
13 23
(
,
\
,
(
j
]
]
]
,

,
(
,
\
,
(
j
(
(
,
\
,
,
(
j
+
D
t
D
t E
P

P
P
(
E
x
p
e
r
i
m
e
n
t
a
l

R
e
s
u
l
t
s
)
Kyriakides
Gong
Estefen
Fig. 10. Comparison between experimental results and predicted values from empirical formula.
10 20 30 40 50 60
0
1
10
100
P
p
/
M
P
a
D/t
Gong
Kyriakides
Steel
API
DNV
Fig. 11. Comparison of the results predicted from different empirical formula. (s
0
310 MPa, E
0
2.06 GPa).
S. Gong et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 115130 128
formula, respectively, proposed by Kyriakides and Babcock [8], and Steel and Spence [10] apparently
overestimate the propagation pressure for this range of D/t values. As to the values of D/t between 15
and 35, the empirical formula, respectively, proposed by Kyriakides and Babcock [8], and DNV [11], as
well as Eq. (12) provide very close predictions of propagation pressure. But the results, respectively,
obtained from Eqs. (4) and (6) actually underestimate the propagation pressure. In addition, when the
values of D/t are between 10 and 15, the predicted results for propagationpressure by Eq. (12) are larger
than ones of other empirical formula. In conclusion, through aforementioned comparative analysis of
predicted results for propagation pressure from different empirical formula, Eq. (12) proposed in the
present study is able to provide very credible results.
5. Conclusions
The experiments have been successfully conducted to identify the mechanism of a propagating
buckle in a long thick-walled pipe under quasi-static steady-state conditions in a sealed hyperbaric
chamber. In combination with experimental observations and results, a three-dimensional nite
element model for the experimental steel pipe within the frame of ABAQUS is developed to model the
buckle propagation phenomenon. The good correlation between numerical and experimental results
demonstrates that the numerical model can accurately predict the total buckle propagation process of
the tube under external pressure. To study the parametric dependence of the propagation pressure, the
modied RambergOsgood model is used to characterize the stressstrain behavior of the pipe
material, and then a series of parametric study on the propagation pressure of offshore pipelines with
the values of D/t ranging from 10 to 60 is conducted adopting the numerical technique developed. The
following conclusions can be drawn.
(1) If the material and geometric parameters of the tube are carefully established, the presented
numerical technique can offer an accurate prediction of the buckle propagation pressure.
(2) The material property has an important effect on the buckle propagation pressure. The paramount
inuencing factors are the strain hardening modulus E
0
and the yield stress s
0
. The tubes with
larger strain hardening modulus and yield stress always possess larger propagation pressure. For
lower D/t values, the effects of strain hardening modulus and yield stress are more pronounced
compared with the case of larger values of D/t. Therefore, higher strength and toughness steel
should be preferred to enhance the post-buckling behaviors in practical engineering, especially for
deepwater pipes.
(3) Based on experimental and extensive numerical results, an empirical formula for buckle propa-
gation pressure P
p
of offshore pipeline with various values of D/t as well as different strain hard-
ening modulus and yield stress is proposed in the present study. The close agreement between
predicted and experimental results shows that the empirical formula can provide very reasonable
estimates of the propagation pressure.
Acknowledgments
The authors express their gratitude to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.
51009122), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2010QNA4030),
and the National Science and Technology Major Project of China (Grant No. 2011ZX05027-002-005-
011) for the nancial support to this study.
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