25th National Congress on Maritime Transportation,

Ship and Offshore Construction

th th
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 10 at 12 November 2014

Cladded Pipes Stress Analysis

, ,
Pedro Henrique CarinoRody*, Paulo Pedro Kenedi** ***, Pedro Manuel Calas Lopes Pacheco** ***
*Technip Brasil
** PPEMM- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Mecânica e Tecnologia de Materiais -
CEFET/RJ
*** DEMEC - Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica - CEFET/RJ

Abstract:
The recent discovery of the pre-salt oil reserves, located in ultra-deep water, exhibit extremely acidic
pHs, thus making difficult the utilization of well-established technologies, such as carbon steel
pipes.Researchers have been seeking viable solutions in order to enables the oil exploration in such
harsh environment. One of these promising technologies is the use of cladded pipes. This
technology involves the application of a metallurgical junction between an offshore carbon steel pipe
of API class and an inner coating made of a high corrosion resistance alloy (e.g. Inconel 625). The
major goal of this technology is to combine high mechanical strength of carbon steel pipes with high
corrosion resistance of high alloy materials.
The results indicate that application of clad of Inconel 625 has no detrimental effect to the
mechanical characteristics of the pipe. The work also evaluates the stresses generated at contact of
the outer surface of the pipeand the reel, showing that contact stresses cannot be neglected, as they
are mainly responsible for the local buckling, caused by excessive compression of the pipe. The
comparison of overall results obtained by both analytical and finite element models revealed to be
very consistent.

failure of the structure. A solution designed to

1 – Introduction
Nowadays, offshore projects are being
developed in ultra-deep water applications,
with very aggressive environments, as in
Brazilian pre-salt, which its oil is considered
medium to high quality, according to API
scale, making the exploration at these
locations economically interesting.
The most severe loading experienced by
pipes are imposed during its installation
(Kyriakides et al., 2007), therefore the
installation method is a parameter that has
direct impact on pipe’s design.
Reel lay is one of the most efficient
installation methods used in offshore
application.This method exposes the pipe to
curvatures that results in hysteresis cycles
introducing plastic strain. Therefore a careful
study of the process in order to perform a
correct design is extreme important to avoid
overtake these conditions and improve the
corrosion resistance is the application of
bimetallic pipes (cladded and lined pipes). It
consists in a connection between two different
kind of material, the external pipe usually made
of C-Mn steel (API class) and an internal pipe
made of a high corrosion resistant alloy (e.g.
Inconel 625).
This paper access, analytically and
numerically,the stresses imposed in this type of
pipes by the Reel lay method.
2 – Cladded pipes
The processing of heavy oil can cause
serious problems related to the deterioration of
metallic materials. Due to the increasing
aggressive operation conditions required
nowadays, replacement of the well established
C-Mn steels for materials with a greater
corrosion resistance has been required. Pipes
1
made of cladded materials meet the highest
requirements for durability, corrosion
resistance and cost effectiveness. The pipes
may have a savings ranging from 25 to 40%
due to the manufacturing process and the
nature of the base metal (Butting, 2014).
The raw material for the manufacture of
cladded pipe is metallurgically bonded plates,
which consist of a base material and a
corrosion resistant alloy. Metallurgically
cladded pipes provide smaller wall thickness if
compared to solid walled pipes in austenitic
materials, or nickel based alloys. Figure 1
shows the image of cladded pipes.
3 – Cladded pipes analytical model
In this section the cladded pipes analytical
model will be presented.
3.1 - Constitutive model
Both materials C-Mn steel and Inconel
were modeled as bi-linear.It uses Young
Modulus, E, up to proportional limit, in the
elastic range, and elastoplastic tangent
modulus to model the hardening behavior of
material after initial yielding. The elastoplastic
tangent modulus, Et. is defined as (Simo et al.,
1998):

(1)

(2)

Where,K is the plastic modulus, Sy is the yield

strength, Sut is the tensile strength and εut is the
ultimate strain. Figure 2 shows the bi-linear
model for, both materials.

Figure 1 – Cladded pipes (Butting, 2014).

The fabrication of cladded pipes consists in

the expansion of both pipes, using hydrostatic
pressure. Due to the increased elastic
resilience of the outer pipe (C-Mn), the inner
one is placed in a state of compressive
residual stress. The result is a strong
mechanical anchoring.
Pipes are subjected to loads such as
internal and external pressures, bending, axial Figure 2 – Stress x Strain graphic of a material
and torsion from the appliedinstallation with bi-linear behavior.
method. The most severe loads observed by
rigid pipes during installation is bending, This approach describes reasonably the
because the plastic strain imposed by small hardening of the C-Mn material (outer pipe),
curvature radius.Therefore, it is necessary to since the stress strain curve of API 5L X65 has
avoid local buckling of these structures, once an approximately linear behavior even in the
this makes pipes unusable, causing great plastic region, as shown at Figure 3.
financial waste.
This study analyzes cladded pipes
subjected to pure bending and describes
analytically and by FEA modelsthe stresses
generated during spooling. By convenience, it
was used the sub-index 1 to describe the
characteristics of outer pipe and sub-index 2 to
make reference to inner pipe (clad).

Figure 3 – Superposition of bi-linear model and

real behavior of API 5L X65.
2
On the other hand, the hardening behavior of and (7)
Inconel 625 is not linear at plastic region,
affecting the bi-linear constituve model
performance as show at Figure 4. (( ) ( ) ) (8)
(( ) ( ) ) (9)

Substituting (6) and (7) at (5) is possible to

present the bending moment share
expressions in a more compact form:

( )
and ( )
(10)

Where, k is the spring constant, I = I1 + I2 is the

second moment of inertia and L is the pipe
length.

Figure 4 – Superposition of bi-linear model 3.2.2 – Bending moment share – Elasto-

and real behavior of Inconel 625. plastic stresses

3.2 – Equilibrium For bending moments greater than My is

necessary to use a little more complex model.
It is supposed that pure bending is applied
to pipes: For,
and (11)
∫ (3)
The constitutive model used in this model (see
Where y is the perpendicular distance Figure 2) is expressed by:
between the neutral axis and a cross section
point. ( ) { (12)
3.2.1 – Bending moment share – Elastic
stresses Once the bending moment is imposed by
the reel’s curvature radius, ρ, (12) can be
For bending moments less than My, the rewritten:
lower bending moment that produces yielding
at the outer fibers, is possible to use a
simplified model to estimate bending moment ( ) { (13)
share between the two pipes.The total
moment M is shared by pipes 1, M1 and by
pipe 2,M2. It is supposed that both pipes are The pipe minimum curvature radius that cross
submitted to the same slope (parallel section pipe still remains totally elastic ρy is:
configuration):

For, (14)
Where the My value is shown at (4.b). The
and (4) strain distribution remains linear even after
cross section has begun to yield:
The bending moment share is:
( ) (15)
and (5)
Where εy is the yield strain, My is the moment of
outer fibers begins to yield and yy is the cross
where section elasto-plastic border. When and
( ) , then:
and (6)

(16)
3
Using (15) and (16): Figure 6 shows definition for dAb.

( ) (17)

The expression 17 show how the distance of

elasto-plastic border, ( ), varies in function
of the applied curvature radius, ρ.
The pipe was separated in regions and
these regions were analyzed separately. Once
the material is submitted only to pure bending,
its neutral line is located in the cross section
centroid. This makes stresses symmetric in
respect to neutral axis.
In order to describe materials response it
is necessary to quantify the different areas, Figure 6 – Description of dAb.
which are appropriately labeled. For instance,
region a is entirely yielded of pipe and region b The differential of area dAb is:
is partially yielded of pipe.
Description of bending moment in region a
(√ √ )
considers an area, as described in Figure 5, in
which we can write x as a function of Router and
y. The differential of area dAa is: (20)
The bending moment of region b is:
√ (18) ( )

( ) [∫ ∫ ( ) ]
( )

(21)
The first term of the sum regards to the
elastic part of the pipe and the second one to
the plastic.

3.3 –Results

The cladded pipe dimensions are shown

at Figure 7.

Figure 5 – Description of dAa.

The bending moment of region a is:

ρ ∫ ( ) (19)

Figure 7 – Dimensions of the cladded pipe.

4
 The characteristics of the materials used in SHELL181 was used to model the two
this project are listed in Tables 1 (outer pipe) materials pipes. It is a four node element with 6
and 2 (inner pipe). freedom degrees in each node: translation and
rotation in x, y and z axis. It supports linear
Table 1 –API 5L X65 properties elastic and plastic analysis. Also, supports
Properties API 5L X65 bilinear isotropic hardening and multilinear
isotropic hardening. Figure 8 shows bodies
Density 7850 kg/m³ meshing.
Young’s Modulus 207 GPa Pure penalty was used to model the
Yield Strengh 448 MPa metallurgical joint of cladded pipes, because its
good convergence behavior. Surface to surface
Ultimate Strengh 537 MPa contact elements were used in this analysis,
Poisson’s ratio 0.3 CONTA174 for inner pipe and TARGE 170 for
outer pipe.
Table 2 – Inconel ® 625 properties
Propriedades Inconel 625
Density 8440 kg/m³
Young’s Modulus 204.8 GPa
Yield Strengh 442 MPa
Ultimate Strengh 896 MPa
Poisson’s ratio 0.3

The previous expressions were Figure 8 – Meshing showing the symmetry

implemented through the utilization of Mathcad condition.
software. The curvature radius is the curvature
imposed by conformation of the pipe on reel’s Figure 9 shows the achievement of meshing
surface. It was considered a radius of 9 m of convergence after some tests.
the reel plus pipe’s radius, which is
approximately 0.1 m. Therefore, the total
Meshing convergence
curvature radius imposed was 9.1 m. 600
Total bending moment generated by
curvature radius of 9.1 m in region a 500
Maximum normal stress [MPa]

is . .m. In region b is b . .m.

400
Maximum bending moment that would lead,
respectively, to rupture of region a is 300
a max . .m and to rupture of region b is
b max .m. 200

Due to symmetry between both regions,

100
bending moment developed will be equal in
modulus, therefore in order to find total applied 0
moment it is summed Ma and Mb e multiplied 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
Number of elements
by two, resulting in . .m.
Maximum total bending moment that would Figure 9 – Meshing convergence.
lead to rupture is max .m. After defined
total moment imposed by the reel, it was found The boundary conditions applied to the
maximum normal stress developed in the model were: bending applied to A (both faces),
defined regions were, σa = 458.2 MPa, translation restriction with regard to x axis in B,
σb_p = 455.2 MPa and σb_e= 299.4 MPa. fixed rotation in C and F; and Y axis restrained
movement in D, as shown in Figure 10.
4 – Finite element model for Cladded pipes Normal stress distribution in Inconel and
subjected to pure bending API 5L X65 are presented respectively at
Figures 11 and 12.
Finite element method was used to
evaluate the behavior of cladded pipes when
subjected to pure bending. The symmetry
condition allows modeling only half pipe.

5
 Figure 10 – Boundary conditions.

Figure 11 – Normal stress distribution on Inconel.

Figure 12 – Normal stress distribution on API 5L X65.

5 – Results comparison 6 – Contact analysis between cladded pipe

The Elasto-plastic analytical model was
implemented in a mathematical program,
MathCad, and its results were compared with
Finite Element outputs. Note that as the
cladded pipe is submitted by pure bending,
any transversal cross-section presents the
same stress distribution (excluding the pipe
ends, by Saint Venant effect)
The comparison results are presented at
Table 3.
Table 3 – Results comparison for cladded pipe
Analitical [MPa] FEA [MPa] Variation [%]
X65 Inconel X65 Inconel X65
459.6 466.3 456.0 473.5 0.8
The results comparison at Table 3 between
elasto-plastic analytical model and Finite
Element model showed good matches.
and reel’s surface
Since the contact between the outer pipe
and the surface causes compressive strains,
the design of cladded pipe shall certify that the
strain level caused by contact is acceptable.
The analysis considers that this contact,
between outer pipe and reel’s surface, as a
frictionless contact. It is considered the
Augmented Lagrange as contact’s formulation.
Despite this formulation requires additional
equilibrium iterations, it was chosen because it
is more robust than pure penalty of the
penetration between the bodies. Same contact
elements defined in Section 4 were used to
Inconel perform outer pipe to reel contact analysis.
Stress distribution in Inconel 625 and API
1.6
5L X65 are presented, respectively, at Figures
13 and 14.

6
 Figure 13 – Stress distribution on Inconel 625.

Figure 14 – Stress distribution on API 5L X65.

As presented above, a compressive improves the corrosion resistance of the pipe,

contact stress is developed by the contact but also gives a gain in mechanical
between cladded pipe and reeling surface. For characteristics. However, care should be taken
carbon steel pipe, the stress is about since cladded pipes become more rigid
-518 MPa and for Inconel is about -570 MPa. because, even with small wall thicknesses,
For both materials this indicate a critical result Inconel exhibits high mechanical strength
since developed stresses are very close to making the reeling operation more complex
ultimate strength of the materials, particularly and difficult. The loads required to conform
for carbon steel (537 MPa). Therefore, a pipe this type of pipe on reel’s surface are great and
axial tension would be suitable to minimize therefore a stress and strain analysis shall be
these compressive stresses and make the performed in order to avoid buckling.
process possible. The analytical and numerical models
presented in this paper show coherent results.
7 – Conclusion Nevertheless, FEA model considering contact
with the spool shows that stress responses
With the growing demand for oil and the
become quite significant.
discovery of the Brazilian pre-salt, new
technologies had to be developed so that the
pipes could have enough mechanical strength
and corrosion resistance to operate in these
areas. Given this scenario, one solution
developed to meet the pre-salt environments
requirements is the application of cladded
pipes.
This kind of pipe shall be carefully studied
since they have very particular characteristics.
From analysis performed in this paper, it was
found that the addition of clad not only
7
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DNV-OS-F101, Submarine Pipeline Systems.

KYRIAKIDES, S.;CORONA, E. Mechanics of

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