This paper presents the strength and damage results based on elastic-plastic analysis to address the design feasibility of pulling in a steel catenary riser (SCR) through a pull tube with various bend configurations in a Spar. The example riser system contains an SCR of typical size, a tapered stress joint, a vertical pull tube with multiple bend sections, guide supports for the pull tube, and the associated pull head and pull chain connected to the top of the riser. The design methods discussed in the paper include: (1) Modeling of riser and pull tube in ABAQUS for strength analysis of the SCR; (2) Strain-based strain-life method to assess the associated fatigue damage; and (3) Strain-based Level 3B ECA design method to derive the critical surface flaw sizes for weld qualification of the SCR inside the pull tube. Comparisons are also presented between results derived from elastic and elastic-plastic analysis methods. The pull-in load on the example SCR increases with the water depth as well as the number and curvature of the bends on the pull tube. Calculated riser pull-in loads are about 11% to 51% higher than the submerged weight of the SCR. The elastic-plastic analysis shows small plastic zone and also small plastic strain on the example SCRs passing through pull tubes of a large bend radius of 125 ft. It also shows large plastic zone but small plastic strain on the SCR in a triple-bend pull tube with a small bend radius of 70 ft. The overall fatigue damage caused by cyclic plastic straining on the example SCRs due to pull in is lower than 3.3%. The allowable surface flaw sizes for the example SCRs are on the order of a × 2c = 8 × 10mm and 2.5 × 40mm for low aspect-ratio and high aspect-ratio surface flaws, respectively. Critical flaw sizes determined by Level 2A ECA are about 25% smaller than the flaw sizes based on Level 3B ECA for low aspect-ratio surface flaws. The specified maximum allowable flaw sizes are not very sensitive to the pull tube configuration and the water depth under the present study. The strength and damage analyses of SCR from other installation methods such as reeling are not included in this paper.
Investigation of high temperature corrosion behavior on 304L austenite stainless steel in corrosive environments
