Mechanical Analysis of Flexible Pipe during Installation

Mechanical analysis of flexible pipe during installation is presented in this paper. The configuration, tension and bending moment of the flexible are important issues during the installation. A reasonable theoretical model is proposed to handle the pipe configuration and the loads during installation. Numerical iteration program for the model is developed to get the tension, bending moment distribution and the pipe configuration. Two segments which are suspended segment and seabed segment are analyzed with different calculation model for their different load conditions and boundary conditions. Finite element model is established by Abaqus to verify the results from the theoretical model. The results from theoretical are very close to the ones got from FEM. Typical installation method J-lay method is applied to perform the FEM and numerical analysis.