Pipeline and cable stability: updated state of the art

Abstract

At OMAE in 2008 the ‘state of the art’in pipeline on-bottom stability engineering was summarized, providing an overview of the current available knowledge for addressing pipeline stability. The aim of that work was to summarise key aspects of the pipeline stability design process and to include some historical perspective. The paper discusses the advantage and shortfalls of the different design approaches with a view to consolidate understanding, rather than to provide a ready-made solution to a complex design problem [1]. Since that time, a decade of research and further methodology refinement has extended the boundaries of the industry's knowledge and understanding of the behaviour of subsea pipelines and cables, including geotechnics, hydrodynamics, oceanography and structural response modelling. In particular, progress has been made in:
• The response of pipelines to sediment transport and scour;
• Understanding the behaviour of small diameter pipelines and cables within wave and current boundary layers; and
• The behaviour of cables on rocky seabeds in high energy marine environments.
This paper summarises these innovations to enable the application of new paradigms in engineering practice and improved outcomes for initial project capital cost, reliability and operational integrity, as well as better models to predict the longterm behaviour where pipes are decommissioned in-situ. While a relatively widely studied field of engineering, there remain areas of active ongoing research to improve our understanding and ability to model and predict subsea pipeline on-bottom behavior, with

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Identifiers

ORCID for David White: orcid.org/0000-0002-2968-582X

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