Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Abstract: Vortex induced vibration is a major The use of COMSOL Multiphysics to model
cause of fatigue failure in submarine oil and gas vortex induced vibration is highlighted, and
pipelines and steel catenary risers. Even several mitigation measures are evaluated and
moderate currents can induce vortex shedding, compared. At the end, the promising potential of
alternately at the top and bottom of the pipeline, applying multiphysics methods to solve coupled
at a rate determined by the flow velocity. Each problems in pipeline design is briefly addressed.
time a vortex sheds, a force is generated in both
the in-line and cross-flow direction, causing an 2. Analysis of offshore pipeline spans
oscillatory multi-mode vibration. This vortex
induced vibration can give rise to fatigue damage A span can occur when an offshore pipeline
of submarine pipeline spans, especially in the bridges across a depression in the seabed, caused
vicinity of the girth welds. by a change in topology such as scouring or sand
waves [01]. For a safe operation of offshore gas
In this paper, COMSOL Multiphysics is applied and oil pipelines during and after installation,
to study the flow pattern around submarine these free spans should be limited to the
pipeline spans, and predict the amplitude and allowable lengths, which are determined during
frequency of the vortex induced vibrations. The the design stage [02].
sensitivity of the computational fluid dynamics
model to geometric parameters and flow Indeed, when the free span is too long, the
variables is investigated. Mitigation measures - pipeline may suffer vortex induced vibration
like helical strakes and fairings- are addressed, when the vortex shedding frequency is close to
and their effectiveness is evaluated. At the end, the natural frequency of the submarine pipeline
the potential of applying multiphysics methods span. For a pipe with diameter D and wall
to solve coupled problems in pipeline design is thickness t, the (lowest) natural frequency can be
briefly discussed. calculated as [03]
C EI
Keywords: fluid structure interaction, pipelines, 0 =
vortex induced vibrations, multiphysics L2 me
where me is the effective mass per unit length
1. Introduction (including structural and added mass, and the
fluid contained within the pipe), E is the
Vortex induced vibration (VIV) can give rise Youngs modulus, C the end boundary
to severe fatigue damage when the vortex coefficient, and
shedding frequency fs approaches the natural 3
D
frequency of a submarine pipeline span.
I = t
2
First, an analysis of offshore pipeline spans is
the moment of inertia. According to Palmer and
presented, deriving the formulas for the (lowest)
King [4], a single span does not have complete
natural frequency of a pipe for different
fixity against rotation at the ends of the observed
boundary conditions and lengths. Then, a short
span length. They advice to treat the span as
review on flow patterns behind submarine
fixed-ended (C = 3.56), but to allow for lack of
pipelines is given, to study the Reynolds
end fixity by taking L somewhat larger than the
numbers for which a turbulent von Karman
observed span length.
vortex street appears.
Figure 1 shows the natural frequency of a expressing the ratio of inertia forces to viscous
pipeline with diameter D = 500 m and wall forces, where U is the fluid flow velocity and the
thickness t = 20 mm, for different boundary kinematic viscosity
conditions and span lengths.
=
is the ratio of the dynamic viscosity with the
density .
Figure 2 shows the isovorticity contours for Figure 4. Flow pattern around a submarine pipeline,
the fluid flow across a submarine pipeline at at the onset of turbulence.
different Reynolds numbers. When the fully
turbulent Von Karman street appears (Re > 300), Due to the alternating vortex wake, the
the pipeline will be subjected to alternating oscillations in lift force L(t) occur at the vortex
vortex shedding, which induces vibrations and shedding frequency fs, and oscillations in drag
can give rise to severe fatigue damage. force D(t) occur at twice this frequency. The in-
flow oscillation is governed by the dimensionless
The numerical modeling of vortex induced drag coefficient
vibration with COMSOL Multiphysics is
D(t )
elaborated in the next section. Cx =
1 U 2
D
4. Numerical modeling of VIV 2
with <U > =2 * Umax/3 the mean velocity, while
The Navier Stokes application mode is used the cross-flow oscillation can be described by the
to model unsteady, incompressible flow past a corresponding lift coefficient
submarine pipeline. Figure 3 shows a pipe (with L(t )
Cy =
diameter D and wall thickness t), placed at an 1 U 2
D
offset e from the centre of the flow velocity field 2
v. The offset e allows to destabilize what Figure 5 shows the evolution of the
otherwise would be steady state symmetrical fluctuating lift and drag coefficients when the
flow. The studied grid is 4D by 12D. von Karman vortex street is fully developed.
Note that the average lift force is zero, while the
average drag force is a measure for the resistance
against fluid flow.