Stability of Pipeline in Curved Route During Offshore Pipeline Installation

초록

The pipeline stability during laying for a curved route has been investigated with various offshore pipeline projects which were successfully performed recently. Druing a curved laying operation, it is very difficult to keep pipeline in the designed route if pipeline being in contact with seabed doesn't create enough resistant force against the external force. To maintain the designed configuration in a curved route, a sufficient lateral force created by the pipeline/ soil intreraction should be provided. The lateral force is a funtion of submerged pipeweight, contact length, soil property, embedment, size of pipe, etc. For a decided pipe for the project, the lateral resistance required to maintain the route is dependent on the external force, contact length, soil property and embeded depth. This paper introduces how to control the laybarge to keep the curved route and shows how to estimate the allowable stable radius for various pipelines during laying in a curved route.