Experience with Interface Shear Box Testing for Pipe-Soil Interaction Assessment on Sand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zack Westgate ◽  
Ricardo Argiolas ◽  
Regis Wallerand ◽  
Jean-Christophe Ballard

Abstract This paper is a companion paper to OTC 28671, titled "Experience with Interface Shear Box Testing for Axial Pipe-Soil Interaction Assessment on Soft Clay", and presents a similar range of experience and best practice recommendations for geotechnical laboratory testing to determine soil properties relevant to pipeline-seabed friction on sandy seabeds. The paper is underpinned by a new database that demonstrates the driving parameters that influence interface friction in granular materials. By accurately quantifying shear resistance along the pipe-soil interface under low normal stresses imposed by subsea pipelines, design ranges in friction can be narrowed and/or tailored to specific pipeline conditions. These improved geotechnical inputs to pipe-soil interaction can alleviate unnecessary axial expansion mitigation and lateral stabilization measures, unlocking cost savings otherwise unavailable through conventional testing. A large database is presented, compiled from both previously published research and unpublished recent industry experience with low normal stress interface shear testing using various modified direct shear box devices. The test database comprises several coarse-grained soil types of both silica and carbonate minerology tested against pipeline coatings of various material, hardness and roughness. The database populates a framework for assessing frictional pipe-soil interaction response, illuminating key trends from normal stress, interface roughness and hardness, and particle angularity, which otherwise remain elusive when examined through individual test datasets. This database and the populated framework provides guidance to pipeline and geotechnical engineers in the form of a basis for initial estimates of axial and lateral friction of pipelines on sand and an approach for improving these estimates via focused site-specific testing. The test database includes previously unreleased project data collected over the past few years for offshore oil and gas projects. Similar to its predecessor paper on soft clays (OTC 28671), this paper shares the authors’ collective experience providing guidance on the planning, execution and interpretation of low stress interface shear tests in sands. The combined databases across both papers provide a significant improvement in early stage guidance for characterization of geotechnical soil properties for subsea pipeline design.

2012 ◽  
Vol 594-597 ◽  
pp. 1624-1628
Author(s):  
Ping Liu ◽  
Gui Yang

The behavior of interfaces between coarse-grained soil and gravel-clay introduced by earthquake plays an important role in analyzing the stability of the impermeable structure in rock filling dams. Using the NGI-type simple shear apparatus, cyclic simple shear tests were performed to study the mechanical behaviors of the interface; shear deformations both along the interface and in the coarse-grained soil were analyzed. The test results indicate that: the cyclic shear strength of the interface was found approximately linearly proportional to the normal stress applied on the interface; meanwhile, the shear deformations reached their peak values in the first cycle, respectively; and the direction of initial shear stress significantly influenced the mode of relative displacement along the interface. In addition, shear shrinkage and shear dilation occurred alternately in each cycle. It also revealed that shear strength of the interface increases as the shear cycle increased and is approximately linear proportional to the normal stress level on the interface.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Grabowski ◽  
M. Nitka ◽  
J. Tejchman

AbstractThree-dimensional simulations of a monotonic quasi-static interface behaviour between initially dense cohesionless sand and a rigid wall of different roughness during tests in a parallelly guided direct shear test under constant normal stress are presented. Numerical modelling was carried out by the discrete element method (DEM) using clumps in the form of convex non-symmetric irregularly shaped grains. The clumps had an aspect ratio of 1.5. A regular grid of triangular grooves (asperities) along the wall with a different height at the same distance was assumed. The numerical results with clumps were directly compared under the same conditions with our earlier DEM simulations using pure spheres with contact moments with respect to the peak and residual interface friction angle, width of the interface shear zone, ratio between grain slips and grain rotations, distribution of contact forces and stresses. The difference between the behaviour of clumps and pure spheres with contact moments proved to be noticeable in the post-peak regime due to a different particle shape. The rolling resistance model with pure spheres was proved to be limited for capturing particle shape effects. Three different boundary conditions along the interface were proposed for micropolar continua, considering grain rotations and grain slips, wall grain moments and wall grain forces, and normalized interface roughness. The numerical results in this paper offer a better understanding of the interface behaviour of granular bodies in DEM and FEM simulations.


Author(s):  
David McLaurin ◽  
Alan Aston ◽  
John Brand

Abstract It has been observed that, although submarine power cables have a critical role to wind power arrays and power export to shore, they are often overlooked at early stages of projects and oversimplified during late stages. This leads to lack of attention given during cable design and planning, as well as pressured schedules during manufacturing, testing and installation. The significant number of incidents attributed to offshore submarine cables during construction has increased overall project risk, lowered system average power availability and increased insurance costs. Lack of proper routing can also result in an inability to maintain asset integrity for the project design life. Despite the attention that submarine power cables have received over the past few years, the number and cost of incidents does not appear to be decreasing. A comparison can be made between offshore HVAC and HVDC cables used for wind power and offshore umbilicals and MV cables used in the oil and gas sector. These umbilicals are often similar in weight, size and bending stiffness, and have similar design, manufacturing, routing and installation challenges, but with a fraction of the incidents observed with offshore wind array and export cables. An additional caveat is that the offshore oil and gas sector has achieved a reliable track record while installing and maintaining these umbilicals and cables in fully dynamic conditions (ultra-deep water) as well static conditions. One primary difference between how the oil and gas sector executes these systems are design, planning and specification from an early stage of the project. Significant attention is given at an early stage to quality control, including offshore routing and umbilical testing specifically to avoid incidents resulting in umbilical damage due to the tension and crushing forces during installation as well as ambient seawater and seabed interaction. Management of these risks are documented, and optimal mitigation strategies are implemented early in the design phase. This paper will discuss the types of incidents which have been observed during construction and installation of submarine HVAC/HVDC cables in the wind power sector and how they could have been prevented by normal practices of the offshore oil/gas sector from early design and planning all the way to installation and commissioning.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Lin ◽  
Yang Liu

Abstract Corrosion is one of the most critical issues in the oil and gas industry, leading to severe environmental and economic problems. Due to the high cost and serious safety risk of corrosion, it is essential to improve current corrosion testing techniques to detect corrosion damages at an early stage. Guided wave tomography (GWT) demonstrates its great potential to inspect and quantify the corrosion damage. GWT is capable of determining the residual life of corrosion structures by quantifying the remaining wall thickness. In this paper, an accurate guided wave tomography technique incorporating full waveform inversion (FWI) and higher-order Lamb waves (A1 mode) is presented for plate-like structures, which is able to get high-resolution reconstruction results. The technique consists of three steps: forward modeling, velocity inversion and thickness reconstruction. The forward modeling is computed by solving the elastic full-wave equations in 2-D time domain by using the finite difference method. High-resolution phase velocity inversion can then be obtained by minimizing the waveform misfit function between simulated and recorded data using a second order optimization method, which updates the velocity model from low to high frequencies iteratively. Finally, the velocity variations can be transformed into depth profiles by using the dispersive characteristics of ultrasonic guided waves; therefore, the thickness reconstruction can be obtained. The numerical simulations are performed on an aluminum plate with a complicated corrosion defect. By comparing the thickness reconstruction maps using both A1 and A0 modes, the results demonstrate that FWI with A1 mode can achieve significantly better resolution of corrosion imaging than that with A0 mode.


Author(s):  
Baozhi Pan ◽  
◽  
Weiyi Zhou ◽  
Yuhang Guo ◽  
Zhaowei Si ◽  
...  

A saturation evaluation model suitable for Nanpu volcanic rock formation is established based on the experiment of acoustic velocity changing with saturation during the water drainage process of volcanic rock in the Nanpu area. The experimental data show that in the early stage of water drainage, the fluid distribution in the pores of rock samples satisfies the patchy formula. With the decrease of the sample saturation, the fluid distribution in the pores is more similar to the uniform fluid distribution model. In this paper, combined with the Gassmann-Brie and patchy formula, the calculation equation of Gassmann-Brie-Patchy (G-B-P) saturation is established, and the effect of contact softening is considered. The model can be used to calculate water saturation based on acoustic velocity, which provides a new idea for the quantitative evaluation of volcanic oil and gas reservoirs using seismic and acoustic logging data.


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 1136-1156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuanhua Qing ◽  
Zhengxiang Lü ◽  
Xiandong Wang ◽  
Xiuzhang Song ◽  
Shunli Zhang ◽  
...  

The oil and gas in the Palaeogene lacustrine carbonate rock reservoirs in the Bohai Sea accumulated during several periods. The reservoir porosity formed during each period affected the degree of accumulation that occurred. In this paper, the percentages of particles, authigenic minerals and pores in the reservoir bed were calculated with the statistical method of microstructure analysis. The formation time was determined with an isotopic analysis of the authigenic carbonate minerals and the homogenization temperature of the gas–liquid inclusions. The percentages of the primary intergranular pores that formed during the different stages were recovered based on the compaction features both before and after the formation of the major authigenic minerals. The evolution of porosity was thus described quantitatively and chronologically, employing the percentages of the residual primary intergranular pores, visceral cavity pores and dissolved pores at the different burial depths. The results indicate that in the initial sediments of the reservoir rock, the primary intergranular porosity was 32.4%. During the early burial stage, the total reservoir porosity increased by up to 46.9%, due to the addition of another type of primary pore, namely visceral cavity pores, which were generated from the decomposition of bioclasts. During the late, deep burial stage, the compaction reduced only 8.2% of the porosity, due to the support of the pore-lining dolomite precipitating during the early stage. Authigenic minerals occupied 12.6% of the porosity, and the dissolution created the secondary porosity by 3.8%. Good preservation of the visceral cavity pores and the growth of the pore-lining dolomites during the early stages are the major factors leading to the high reservoir porosity. The quantitative and chronological characteristics of the reservoir porosity evolution could be described accurately. The prediction of reservoir beds can be better guided than in previously reported methods by applying high resolution microscopic quantitative analysis technology and authigenic mineral timing analysis technology.


Author(s):  
A. B. Hawkins ◽  
K. D. Privett

AbstractBS 5930 offers little assistance to engineers wishing to use residual strength parameters in slope stability analysis. It wrongly suggests the ring shear gives lower parameters than the shear box.BS 5930 does not mention the fact that the residual strength is stress dependent, hence the failure envelope is curved and the parameters must be assessed using an appropriate effective normal stress. For this reason the correlation charts relating ϕ′R to plasticity index or clay content need replacing with a series of charts in which these properties are plotted against ϕ′R values obtained at a number of effective normal stress loadings. Even then such correlations should be treated with caution.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (24) ◽  
pp. 16372-16385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiqiang Shen ◽  
Huilin Ye ◽  
Ying Li

The membrane wrapping of the soft nanoparticle (NP) is faster than that of the stiff one at the early stage, due to the NP deformation induced large contact area between the NP and membrane. However, because of the large energy penalties induced by the NP deformation, the membrane wrapping speed of soft NPs slows down during the late stage.


2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Jordan

With the need to extend the life of ageing assets, manage shorter maintenance campaigns and ensure availability of resources, companies are becoming more curious and creative about possible solutions and more willing to collaborate across traditional silos. Oil and gas companies are building more digitally integrated supply chains and are seeing significant results. When a damaged gasket can cost US$1M/day and create a major safety hazard, even early stage implementation of digital technologies can generate significant improvements. A liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant was curious about what they could achieve through better data integration and alignment. Visualising activity plans and digitally integrating equipment strategies through bill of materials improved the plant’s supply responsiveness, increasing both asset availability and production output by 2%. Creatively leveraging automation across the supply chain is helping companies become more connected. Starting with advanced analytics, the building blocks for end-to-end solutions are being built. In the near future, predictive part failures data will automatically load into work management processes, maintenance plans will immediately update and the right parts automatically ordered at the right time. Some companies are experimenting with this ‘virtual handshake’ across departments and systems, creating a smarter, faster and more reliable operation. Using both analytics and improved collaboration, one LNG operation has seen a 40% reduction in duplicate parts, a 30% reduction in inventory and an 8% reduction in overall maintenance cost. Through curiosity, creativity and collaboration across a digitally integrated supply chain, industry organisations can reduce controllable operational cost, making them more reliable and competitive.


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