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Buckle interaction in deep subsea pipelines

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DOI: 10.1016/j.tws.2013.07.003

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 Thin-Walled Structures 72 (2013) 113–120

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Thin-Walled Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tws

Buckle interaction in deep subsea pipelines

Hassan Karampour a, Faris Albermani a,n, Martin Veidt b
a
School of Civil Engineering, The University of Queensland, Australia
b
School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland, Australia

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The paper investigates the interaction between propagation buckling and upheaval or lateral buckling in
Received 29 October 2012 deep subsea pipelines. The upheaval and lateral buckling are two possible global buckling modes in long
Accepted 3 July 2013 pipelines while the propagation buckling is a local mode that can quickly propagate and damage a long
Available online 24 July 2013
segment of a pipeline in deep water. A numerical study is conducted to simulate buckle interaction in
Keywords: deep subsea pipelines. The interaction produces a significant reduction in the buckle design capacity of
Buckle-interaction the pipeline. This is further exasperated due to the inherent imperfection sensitivity of the problem.
Buckle propagation Crown Copyright & 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Upheaval buckling
Subsea pipelines

1. Introduction numerical study is conducted for lateral buckling. Section 3 is

The relentless demand for energy resources has shifted
hydrocarbon exploration to deep frontier subsea regions. Exam-
ples of recent deep subsea fields are the Perdido fold belt oil fields
at depth of 2300 m in the Gulf of Mexico and Lula–Mexilhão gas
fields at a depth of 2145 m at Santos basin off the coast of Brazil. It
is expected that 25% of offshore petroleum production will be in
deep water by 2015. Hydrocarbon production in deep water
requires long pipelines (several hundred kilometres) and the
design of such pipelines poses many engineering challenges.
A long pipeline may experience global buckling through lateral
or upheaval buckling modes. Although these two buckling modes
are not essentially failure modes, they can precipitate failure
through excessive bending that may lead to fracture, fatigue or
propagation buckling. In deep water, the catastrophic propagation
buckling can quickly transform the pipe cross-section into a
dumb-bell shape that travels along the pipeline, as long as the
external pressure is high enough to sustain propagation. A number
of experimental, analytical and numerical studies have been
conducted by many researchers on; upheaval buckling [1–3],
lateral buckling [4–6] and propagation buckling [7–9] of pipelines.
So far, the buckle interaction between lateral or upheaval
buckling and propagation buckling has received very limited
attention [10]. Buckle interaction is a possible scenario in deep
water. The current trends towards deep water operations justify an
assessment of the effects of this interaction on the integrity of the
pipeline, which is the subject of this paper.
Global buckling of subsea pipelines is presented in Section 2.
An analytical approach is used to study upheaval buckling and a
devoted to propagation buckling and its imperfection sensitivity.
The interaction between upheaval or lateral buckling and propa-
gation buckling is presented in Section 4. The effect of the
interaction is summarised in an interaction curve that shows the
percent reduction in buckling capacity of the pipeline. Two model
aluminium pipes with diameter-to-thickness ratio (D/t) of 28.57
and 42.86 are used for comparison. The nominal properties of
these model pipes are given in Table 1. A third pipe given in
Table 1 (D/t ¼34.9) is used for verification in Section 4.
2. Global buckling of subsea pipelines
A pipeline is a slender structure that travels long distances. The
hydrocarbon contents in the pipeline usually are at high tempera-
ture (80 1C or higher) and high internal pressure (10 MPa or
higher). Both the rise in temperature and internal pressure result
in longitudinal expansion of the pipeline. The seabed friction acts
to restrain this expansion which results in the build-up of axial
compression in the pipe that may eventuate in buckling. A pipeline
resting on the seabed will buckle laterally (in the horizontal plane)
while a trenched pipeline will undergo upheaval buckling (in the
vertical plane). The axial compression force, N, in the pipeline due
to restrained longitudinal expansion is given by
N ¼ EAαΔT e ð1Þ
where the effective temperature change, ΔTe accounts for the
combined effects of temperature ΔT and internal pressure ρ

n
Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 7 336 541 26. ρDð12υÞ
ΔT e ¼ ΔT þ ð2Þ
E-mail address: f.albermani@uq.edu.au (F. Albermani). 4tEα

0263-8231/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright & 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tws.2013.07.003
114 H. Karampour et al. / Thin-Walled Structures 72 (2013) 113–120

in the above equations, E is elasticity modulus, A is cross-section adopted here similar to [2]. Different types of local initial imper-
area, D is the pipe's outer diameter, t is the wall thickness, υ is fection can be considered such as; point imperfection (isoprop),
Poisson's ratio and α is the coefficient of thermal expansion. fully contact imperfection and infilled prop. For sake of brevity, a
point imperfection (isoprop) is assumed here. Isoprop imperfec-
2.1. Upheaval buckling tion gives a more critical response than fully contact imperfection
and is easier to model than infilled prop, which usually yields
A long heavy beam resting on a rigid frictional foundation comparable result. Coulomb friction model is adopted with a coeffi-
model is used for investigating upheaval buckling of pipelines. cient of friction μ.
Previous studies have shown that upheaval buckling is sensitive to A pipe with diameter D, wall thickness t and submerged self-
local initial imperfection while foundation stiffness has a small weight m resting on a point imperfection of height Δ0 is shown in
effect on the overall response [1–3]. A small deflection approach is Fig. 1. The initial, pre-buckled and post-buckled configurations of
the pipe are shown in the figure with half lengths εo, εu and ε,
respectively, and δ is uplift amplitude at the crown. The axial
compression force distribution of the buckled pipe (half model) is
Table 1 shown in Fig. 2. The compression axial force varies from P in the
Nominal properties of the studied model pipes.
buckled region to fully mobilised N away from the buckle with a
D/t D t E Et sy sy
Py Mp sliding length L1 controlled by axial friction.
E
(mm) (mm) (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (kN) (kN/mm) Prior to temperature rise (P¼ 0), the equilibrium profile of the
suspended pipe is
42.86 38.10 0.90 69.0 1500 90 0.013 9.35 110.79
28.57 25.40 0.90 69.0 1500 90 0.013 6.16 48.07
mx4 mε0 x3 mε0 2 x2
34.90 31.70 0.91 186.0 2000 259 0.014 11.57 222.75 w0x ¼  þ  þ Δ0 ð3Þ
24EI 9EI 12EI

Fig. 1. Upheaval buckling of a pipe resting on a point imperfection (isoprop).

Fig. 2. Axial force distribution in upheaval buckling.

 H. Karampour et al. / Thin-Walled Structures 72 (2013) 113–120 115

with I is the second-moment of area, x≤εo and the length of the
suspended span


72EIΔo 1=4
εo ¼
m and assuming soil friction μ¼0.5, the submerged self-weight
Axial compression is induced in the pipe as the effective
temperature rises (Eq. (2)). Before lift-off, the bending moment
at x is given by
1
M o þ PðΔ0 wÞ þ Rx mx2 ¼ EI ½wx00 wox
00
 ð4Þ
2 displacement (δ  Δ0)/D, where
where R and Mo are the vertical reaction and bending moment at
the crown (x¼0). Previous researchers [1,2] had neglected the
00
effect of initial curvature w0x in Eq. (4) which was shown to be
inconsistent with experimental results [3]. Solving Eq. (4) under
pre-upheaval boundary conditions given in Table 2, the governing
characteristic equation (pre-upheaval) is obtained as shown in the
same table and the prop reaction R is calculated:
2m ð sin ðkεÞkε cos ðkεÞÞ 2
R¼  mε0
k 1 cos ðkεÞ 3 its peak at lift-off the bending moment shows monotonic increase
where k2 ¼P/EI with a characteristic length equal to 1/k.
At lift-off (R¼0), the uplifted half-wavelength εu is obtained
from Eq. (5) which gives εu ≅0:75εo . This indicates that the pipe
shrinks before it lifts off the prop. Following lift-off, Eq. (4) (with
R¼ 0) is solved subject to post-upheaval boundary conditions in
Table 2 to yield the governing characteristic equation and the
resulting buckle profile wx, both are given in Table 2.
By prescribing the uplifted length ε, the characteristic equa-
tion (Table 2) is solved for the compressive axial force, P, in the
uplifted pipe. Due to loss of friction along the buckled length and
geometric shortening effect, the force P is less than the axial
compressive force, N, away from the buckle (Fig. 2). The two axial
forces P and N can be related using compatibility at x¼ε. Assuming
an infinitely long pipe
h i0:5
N ¼ P þ 2mμEAΔsðmμεÞ2 ð6Þ
where Δs is the geometric shortening in the buckle and is given by
Z ε h i assumed to be mobilised at a lateral displacement equal to the pipe's
1
Δs ¼ ðwx0 Þ2 ðwo0 Þ2 dx ð7Þ
0 2
The above equations together with the equations given in
Table 2 were implemented in Matlab [11] and solved numerically
by prescribing the uplifted length ε.
Using the two pipes shown in Table 1 with D/t 42.86 and 28.57,
m ¼14.1 N/m (with coating, for both pipes) and imperfection
amplitude Δ0 ¼ D, the upheaval buckling response of these two
pipes is calculated using this approach. Fig. 3 shows the normal-
ised axial compression force P/Py in the buckle and the normalised
crown's bending moment M/Mp against normalised crown's uplift
P y ¼ sy πDo t ð8Þ
M p ¼ sy D20 t ð9Þ
D0 ¼ Dt ð10Þ
and sy is the yield stress.
The early drop in the moment curve shown in Fig. 3 correspond
to shrink in the pipe before lift-off. While the axial force reaches
ð5Þ
with uplift. The normalised upheaval response (axial and bending)
for the two pipes (D/t¼28.57 and 42.86) nearly coincide at higher
uplift amplitudes.
2.2. Lateral buckling
Finite element modelling of lateral buckling is more amenable
than upheaval buckling since there is no loss of contact between the
pipe and the seabed during buckling. For this reason, nonlinear FE
shell modelling of the two pipes used in the previous section
(Table 1) is conducted using ANSYS [12]. Thin shell (Shell-181)
elements with 5 through-thickness integration points and von-
Mises elastoplastic material definition (Table 1) with isotropic hard-
ening are used. The model accounts for possible ovalization of the
pipe's cross-section under lateral buckling. Nonlinear spring elements
(COMBIN39) are used to account for the lateral drag and vertical
stiffness of the seabed. Fig. 4 shows the bilinear constitutive model
adopted for the seabed lateral drag where the peak force Fy is
diameter D. Assuming rigid seabed, the vertical springs were
assigned a substantially higher stiffness than lateral springs.

Table 2
Upheaval buckling: boundary conditions, characteristic equations and buckled profiles.

Boundary conditions
Pre-upheaval wð0Þ ¼ Δ0 ; wx0 ð0Þ ¼ 0 ; wðε0 Þ ¼ 0 ; wx0 ðε0 Þ ¼ 0; wx00 ðε0 Þ ¼ 0

Post-upheaval wð0Þ ¼ w0 ; wx0 ð0Þ ¼ 0; wðεÞ ¼ 0; wx0 ðεÞ ¼ 0; wx00 ðεÞ ¼ 0

εu ≤ε≤ε0

Post-upheaval wð0Þ ¼ w0 ; wx0 ð0Þ ¼ 0 wðεÞ ¼ 0; wx0 ðεÞ ¼ 0; wx00 ðεÞ ¼ 0

ε0 o ε

Characteristic equations
Pre-upheaval 2
ðkε0 Þ4 ½ cos ðkεÞ1 þ 72ðkεÞ ½1 þ cos ðkεÞ288kε sin ðkεÞ ¼ 0
   
Post-upheaval kε0 1 cos ðkεÞ 3 sin ðkεÞkε cos ðkεÞ ¼ 0
εu ≤ε≤ε0

Post-upheaval kε cos ðkεÞ sin ðkεÞ þ kε30 cos ðkε0 Þ sin ðkε0 Þ þ 2kε
3 ¼0
0

ε0 o ε

Upheaval buckled profile w(x)

Pre-upheaval wðxÞ ¼ Λ sin ðkxÞ þ Γ cos ðkxÞ þ C 1 x2 þ C 2 x þ C 3
  mε20
C 1 ¼  2m ; C 2 ¼ 21 R þ 23 mε0 ; C 3 ¼ 2m4 þ Δ0 þ M2ð0Þ  2
k EI k EI EIk k EI 6k EI

Post-upheaval wðxÞ ¼ A sin ðkxÞ þ B cos ðkxÞ þ C 1 x þ C 2 x þ C 3

2

ε20
C1 ¼  m
; C2 ¼ 2mε0
; C 3 ¼ w0 þ Mð0Þ þ m 2

k2 EI 3k2 EI 2
k EI k2 EI k2 6
116 H. Karampour et al. / Thin-Walled Structures 72 (2013) 113–120
P/Py
0.20
D/t=42.86 Upheaval
D/t=28.57 Upheaval
D/t=28.57 lateral
0.15 D/t=42.86 Lateral
0.10
0.05
0.00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Fig. 3. Normalised upheaval and lateral buckling response: (a) axial force vs. crown displacement and (b) crown moment vs. crown displacement.
Fig. 4. Assumed lateral drag force of the seabed under lateral buckling.
An initial geometric imperfection with amplitude Δo ¼4D and
a sinusoidal half wave length λ ¼200D is assumed (Δo/λ is
comparable to the upheaval buckling case in Section 2.1). In order
to have adequate thermal feed-in length for the evolution of
lateral buckling, the length of the FE model of the pipe is taken
as 4λ.
Due to symmetry, a half-model (2λ) is used in the analysis. The
axial compression force is applied through incrementing the
longitudinal displacements at the far end of the pipe. The resulting
axial force and bending moment are obtained by integrating the
induced reactions at the near end (the crown). Fig. 3 shows the
normalised axial compression force P/Py in the buckle and the
normalised crown's bending moment M/Mp against normalised
crown's lateral displacement (δ  Δ0)/D for the two pipes. From
Fig. 3, it is clear that the axial compression force that initiates
lateral buckling is substantially lower than that necessary for
upheaval buckling. Unlike upheaval buckling response, the lateral
response remains distinguishable for both pipes at higher lateral
displacements. A gentle change in axial load following buckling is
obtained under lateral buckling in comparison to the sharp drop
under upheaval buckling. At higher lateral displacements, the
bending response for D/t¼42.86 approaches that for upheaval
M/Mp
1.0
D/t=42.86 Upheaval
D/t=28.57 Upheaval
0.8 D/t=28.57 lateral
D/t=42.86 Lateral
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
buckling. However, for lower D/t (28.57) which is more suitable for
deep subsea application, substantially higher bending moment is
induced under upheaval rather than lateral buckling.
3. Buckle propagation in deep subsea pipelines
Buckle propagation is a snap-through phenomenon that can be
triggered by a local buckle, ovalization, dent or corrosion in the pipe
wall. The resulting buckle quickly transforms the pipe cross-section
into a dumb-bell shape that travels along the pipeline as long as the
external pressure is high enough to sustain propagation. Fig. 5 shows a
typical buckle propagation response obtained from testing a 3 m long
aluminium pipe with D/t¼25 in a hyperbaric chamber [7]. The
response shown in Fig. 5 is depicted in terms of the applied
hydrostatic pressure against the pipe's volume change (ΔV/V) and is
characterised by; the pressure at which the snap-through takes place
(the initiation pressure PI) and the pressure that maintains propaga-
tion (the propagation pressure Pp) which is a small fraction of PI.
The elastic collapse pressure, Pc, represents an upper-bound on
PI while Palmer and Martin [9] pressure, PPM, gives a lower-bound
 H. Karampour et al. / Thin-Walled Structures 72 (2013) 113–120 117

Fig. 5. Buckle propagation in hyperbaric chamber test of a 3 m long aluminium pipe (D/t¼ 25).

P/Pc P (MPa)
1.25 8.0

7.0
1.00
6.0

0.75 5.0

4.0
0.50 3.0

2.0
0.25
1.0

0.00 0.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.2
D/D D/D

Fig. 6. Propagation buckling response for intact (Ω¼0.1%) and dented (Ω¼1.0% and Ω¼ 1.5%) pipes: (a) normalised pressure; and (b) absolute pressure.

on Pp. These two pressures, Pc and PPM, are given by The response is shown in terms of normalised applied external

3 pressure (P/Pc, Fig. 6(a)) and the applied pressure (P, Fig. 6b)
2E t
Pc ¼   ð11Þ against normalised distortion of the pipe (ΔD/D). In order to
1ν2 D clearly distinguish the response of each pipe at buckle initiation,

2 Fig. 6(b) shows the response up to ΔD/D ¼0.2. It is clear from this
t figure that propagation pressure Pp is a small fraction of initiation
P PM ¼ πsy ð12Þ
D pressure PI (around 20% for both pipes according to Fig. 6(a)). This
Nonlinear finite element analysis of propagation buckling was necessitates substantial increase in material and installation cost
conducted and shown to agree reasonably well with experimental of deep subsea pipelines since the design is governed by Pp.
results [7]. The initiation pressure PI represents a snap-through instability;
Buckle propagation of the two pipes used in Section 2 is it is expected to be very sensitive to imperfection (such as dent for
conducted using nonlinear finite element analysis with ANSYS example). By increasing the initial imperfection from intact
thin shell-181 element. Frictionless contact and target elements (Ω¼ 0.1%) to dented pipe with Ω¼ 1% and Ω ¼1.5%, Fig. 6
(ANSYS element 174 and 170) are used to define the contact (b) shows a drastic reduction in PI of 17% and 33% for D/t¼42.86
between the inner surfaces of the pipe wall. A von-Mises elasto- and 28.57 respectively. On the other hand, Fig. 6 shows that Pp is
plastic material definition with isotropic hardening was adopted. insensitive to imperfection.
In order to control the nonlinear analysis, a small dent Ω¼0.1% The catastrophic nature of buckle propagation and its acute
over a small circular surface area (20 mm diameter) is introduced imperfection sensitivity highlights the importance of investigating
at the pipe's mid-length possible buckle interactions between global (upheaval or lateral)
and local (propagation) buckles in deep subsea pipelines. It is for
Ω ¼ ΔD=D ð13Þ
this reason that Albermani et al. [7,13] proposed a textured
Fig. 6 shows the predicted finite elements propagation pipeline that exhibits superior buckle propagation capacity and
response of the two pipes with D/t ¼28.57 and 42.86 (Table 1). insensitivity to imperfection.
118 H. Karampour et al. / Thin-Walled Structures 72 (2013) 113–120

M/Mp
1.2

1.0

A
0.8
B

0.6

0.4
Current Result

Experiment [14]
0.2

0.0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
/ c

Fig. 7. (a) Exaggerated view of the assumed wrinkled initial imperfection in the vicinity of mid-length and (b) interaction of bending and external hydrostatic pressure for
pipe D/t¼ 34.9 in Table 1.

Fig. 8. A crown segment of the pipeline under the combined actions of upheaval/lateral buckling (axial force P and bending moment M) and external pressure ρ.

4. Buckle interaction
As shown in Sections 2 and 3, upheaval and lateral buckling can
induce excessive bending in pipelines. The resulting bending may
precipitate catastrophic buckle propagation that damages a sub-
stantial length of deep subsea pipeline. This is further exasperated
by the severe imperfection sensitivity of propagation response. In
this section, a FE study is conducted to investigate buckle interac-
tion for the two pipes with D/t ¼28.57 and 42.86 shown in Table 1.
First, the FE modelling is verified against available experimen-
tal study on the interaction between bending and external
pressure [14]. A steel pipe 1 m long (L) with D/t¼ 34.9 (L/D ¼
31.5, Table 1) was used in the reported experimental study. Using
symmetry, a shell FE model of the pipe using half-length
(500 mm) and half cross-section is generated in ANSYS [12] using
a total of 2250 SHELL-181 elements (18 elements in circumfer-
ential direction and 125 elements along the length). A bilinear
material model (Table 1, D/t ¼34.9) using von-Mises plasticity
with isotropic hardening is adopted.
To control the numerical solution, a localised wrinkled initial
imperfection ω [15] is imposed on the compression side of the
pipe at mid-length as shown in Fig. 7(a).
Dh  πx i πx
ω¼ ao þ ai cos cos ð Þ 0≤x≤Nλ
2 Nλ λ
where the imperfection half-wave length λ¼ 0.165D, number of
half-waves N ¼11, with a base amplitude ao ¼ 0.0025 and 20%
amplitude bias, ai/ao, towards mid-span.
The load is applied at two stages according to the experiment
[14]. At the first stage, a couple is incrementally applied at the far
end of the pipe until the desired bending/curvature is achieved.
This is followed by incremental application of external hydrostatic
pressure while maintaining the desired curvature. Fig. 7(b) shows
the normalised moment-curvature response from the experiment
and the current FE simulation. The curvature k is normalised by
critical curvature kc
t
κc ¼ ð15Þ
D20
As seen in Fig. 7(b), the bending moment is incremented
beyond the plastic moment capacity and held constant at a
normalised curvature around 0.55 followed by the application of
the external hydrostatic pressure. The onset of failure during the
experiment was reported at an applied hydrostatic pressure of
0.3po accompanied by 20% drop in moment (Point B in Fig. 7(b)),
where po is given by
t
po ¼ 2sy ð16Þ
D0
The FE results are in good agreement with the experimental
results with a predicted collapse at 0.28po (Point A) accompanied
by 14% drop in moment.
4.1. Interaction of upheaval and propagation buckling
ð14Þ According to Section 2.1, the highest bending moment under
upheaval buckling is in the vicinity of the uplifted crown point. For
this reason, the FE model used to investigate the interaction
between upheaval and propagation buckling is based on a crown
segment of a dented pipe with a length L ¼1000 mm (500 mm on
either side of the crown point, Fig. 8). The two pipes with D/
t¼28.57 and 42.86 (Table 1) are used in the interaction study. This
gives L/D of 26–39 which is comparable to that of the experi-
mental study presented in Fig. 7(b).
 H. Karampour et al. / Thin-Walled Structures 72 (2013) 113–120 119

Fig. 9. (a) FE model of the interaction between upheaval/lateral and propagation buckling (loading and constraints) and (b) FE result of buckle propagation due to the
interaction between upheaval/lateral buckling and external pressure.

Table 3 30
%
Reduction in initiation pressure due to interaction of upheaval and propagation
buckling. 25

D/t M/Mp Initiation pressure Reduction in initiation

20
þI (MPa) pressure (PI  þI)/PI (%)

42.86 (Ω¼ 1%) 0 1.74 0 15

0.50 1.61 7.47
0.60 1.58 9.20 10
0.70 1.54 11.49
0.80 1.49 14.37
5
0.90 1.44 17.24

28.57 (Ω¼1.5%) 0 4.53 0
0.50 3.89 14.13
0.60 3.82 15.67
0.70 3.73 17.66
0.80 3.65 19.43
0.90 3.58 20.97
1.00 3.25 28.26
A half-length and half-section model is used as shown in Fig. 9
(a). A shell FE model using SHELL-181 elements and a bilinear
material model (Table 1, D/t ¼28.57 and 42.86) using von-Mises
plasticity with isotropic hardening is adopted. Similar localised
wrinkled initial imperfection as described in Section 4 (Eq. (14)
and Fig. 7(a)) is assumed.
Making use of symmetry (Fig. 9(a)), the lateral (X) displacement
and the rotation about the longitudinal axis (Z) are restrained
along L1 and L2. Similarly, the longitudinal displacement (Z) and
rotation about X-axis are restrained along L4 at mid-length and the
vertical Y-displacement is restrained along L3 at the far end.
The loading shown in Fig. 9(a) is applied in three steps. In the
first step, axial compression load is incremented to the maximum
upheaval buckling load obtained in Fig. 3(a). In the second loading
step, the axial load is maintained (which is conservative) while a
couple is incremented at the far end of the pipe. The couple is
incremented to the desired M/Mp ratio (Fig. 3(b)). In the third step
of loading, while maintaining the axial and bending load achieved
in the previous two steps, external hydrostatic pressure is incre-
mented until a propagating buckle in initiated at þI (Fig. 9(b)). The
resulting initiation pressure þI is compared to the initiation
pressure of a dented pipe (same amount of dent Ω) subjected to
external hydrostatic pressure alone, PI, as discussed in Section 3. It
is worth noting that the effect of the axial compression load (step
1) on the final results is negligible. This is expected since the
upheaval response is dominated by bending.
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
M/Mp
Fig. 10. Interaction of upheaval/lateral buckling and propagation buckling.
The effect of the interaction between upheaval and propagation
buckling on buckle initiation þI for the two pipes (D/t¼ 28.57 and
42.86) is summarised in Table 3 and Fig. 10. The initiation pressure
PI of the dented pipes (no interaction, M/Mp ¼ 0, Fig. 6(b)) is 1.74
and 4.53 MPa for D/t 42.86 and 28.57, respectively. When the pipe
undergoes upheaval buckling (due to restrained thermal expan-
sion), the rapid growth in bending moment as the pipe lifts
off the seabed (Fig. 3(b)) results in a drastic reduction in initia-
tion pressure þI. According to Table 3, when 90% of the pipe's
bending capacity is exhausted, the resulting reduction in initiation
pressure is 17-21% for D/t¼42.86 and 28.57 respectively. As seen
from Fig. 10, a steeper reduction in initiation pressure is obtained
as M/Mp approaches 1. Due to interaction, higher reduction in
buckle initiation capacity is expected at lower D/t (deep subsea
applications).
4.2. Interaction of lateral and propagation buckling
A similar model to that used in the previous section (Figs. 8 and
9) is used to investigate the interaction between lateral and
propagation buckling of the two dented pipes with D/t ¼28.57
and 42.86 (Table 1). The restrained conditions along L1–L4 (Fig. 9
(a)) were revised to reflect the symmetrical conditions under
lateral buckling. Similar loading sequence (three steps) is followed
as described before and according to the lateral buckling response
shown in Fig. 3(a) and (b). Due to the interaction between the
lateral and propagation buckling, the resulting initiation pressure
þI is lower than the initiation pressure, PI, of a similarly dented
pipe subjected to external hydrostatic pressure alone (Section 3).
120 H. Karampour et al. / Thin-Walled Structures 72 (2013) 113–120
Interaction between lateral and propagation buckling for the two
pipes (D/t 28.57 and 42.86) can be represented by the same
interaction curves shown in Fig. 10 and in conjunction with
Fig. 3 (lateral case). Note that according to Fig. 3, the same crown
displacement (lateral or upheaval) induces less moment under
lateral rather than upheaval buckling. Accordingly, the resulting
reduction in initiation buckling (Fig. 10) due to lateral/propagation
interaction is less than that due to upheaval/propagation interac-
tion. As discussed in Section 3, buckle initiation is a snap-through
instability that is very sensitive to geometric imperfection, this
imperfection sensitivity together with the possibility of buckle inter-
action, impose sever design limitations on deep subsea pipelines.
5. Conclusions
The paper has presented an analytical solution to upheaval
buckling and a FE analysis of lateral buckling and buckle propaga-
tion. It is shown that the snap-through propagation buckling is
very sensitive to initial imperfection. The upheaval and lateral
buckling response for two model pipes with different D/t ratios are
presented and compared. A pipe segment in the vicinity of the
crown point of global buckling (upheaval or lateral) is used to
study buckle interaction between upheaval or lateral buckling and
propagation buckling. The calculated axial compression load and
bending moment from upheaval/lateral buckling are fed to this
segment model followed by the incremental application of exter-
nal hydrostatic pressure on the pipe to obtain propagation
response. Due to the interaction between upheaval/lateral and
propagation buckling, a substantial reduction in initiation pressure
is expected, particularly at lower D/t ratios. An interaction curve is
presented for each of the pipe models considered. Higher reduc-
tion in initiation pressure is expected under upheaval/propagation
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interaction in comparison to lateral/propagation interaction. The
acute imperfection sensitivity coupled with buckle interaction
need to be considered in the design of deep subsea pipelines.
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