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OTC-26240-MS

Walking Behaviour and Mitigation Strategies of the Tullow TEN Project

Swaged Pipe-In-Pipe Flowlines
Majid Hesar, Tzi Piau Cheong, Amit Prasad, Leonardo Gitahy, Carlos Charnaux and James Luckyram, Subsea 7,
and Mehrdad Mansour, Tullow Oil PLC

Copyright 2015, Offshore Technology Conference

This paper was prepared for presentation at the Offshore Technology Conference Brasil held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 27–29 October 2015.

This paper was selected for presentation by an OTC program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
of the paper have not been reviewed by the Offshore Technology Conference and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect
any position of the Offshore Technology Conference, its officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the
written consent of the Offshore Technology Conference is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words;
illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of OTC copyright.

Abstract
The TEN development project offshore Ghana (operated by Tullow Ghana Ltd and partners) includes
one 6” gas production and six 8” oil production infield flowlines. The flowlines lengths vary from 3.2km
to 7.2km and are located in water depths of 1200m-1800m. In order to achieve a high level of thermal
insulation, these flowlines are fabricated from swaged pipe-in-pipe systems, developed by ITP. The
pipes are double jointed and assembled onshore to produce double joint units of swaged pipe-in-pipe
which are welded together on the J-lay vessel. An Izoflex layer is wrapped onto the inner pipe within the
annulus. This novel configuration ensures excellent thermal insulation characteristics.
However, prediction of thermo-mechanical response of the flowline during operation is a challenge due
to the discontinuity of outer pipe and hence effective axial force transfer and bending stiffness at the
field joints. In all of the flowlines, production oil flows uphill against seabed slopes of up to 3.1 º. In
addition hot oiling could be circulated in downhill or uphill directions. This Paper highlights the
engineering and computational challenges faced and the efficient solutions developed during detailed
design of these flowlines to mitigate against walking. All design activities and numerical solutions were
performed in house by Subsea7.
A bespoke global walking FE model consisting of 3D pipe elements in Abaqus software was developed
for each of the flowlines. ITT elements ensured correct modelling of the interaction between the inner
and outer pipes. The sleeve was modelled so as to transfer bending moments but no axial force. The
model was used to simulate the walking behaviour and develop anchor forces of the lines with design
Axial/Lateral pipe-soil friction factor combination (BE/UB) as well as the sensitivity combinations
(LB/UB, UB/UB and UB/BE).
Lateral buckling analyses (not addressed in this paper) had shown that for all the oil production lines,
one buckle site consisting of three sleepers spaced 20m apart combined with one anchor at cold end and
one anchor point at 1.5km in from the hot end was the most optimal solution. End displacements on
skid-mounted PLETs were restricted to +1.5/-0.5m. In most cases the UB/UB and UB/BE friction factor
combinations resulted in unplanned buckles forming and neither of the anchors being engaged. The
governing anchor force was for the case of hot-oil flowing downhill in the opposite direction to
production with BE/UB friction factor combination.
OTC-26240-MS 2

A new Excel-based GUI (SPLATter) was developed in Python which completely automates the
laborious task of creating variable density meshes for pipeline models and writing out Abaqus input
files, as well as drastically reducing the post-processing tasks.

Introduction
The Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) reservoirs are situated in the Deep Water Tano block
approximately 60km off the coast of Ghana, West Africa. The reservoirs are found in water depths
ranging between 1,000m and 2,000m. The field is split into east and west sides by a subsea canyon.
Following completion of the exploration and appraisals Tullow Ghana Limited and partners Kosmos
Energy LLC, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Ghana National Petroleum Company and PetroSA are
developing the TEN fields. The discoveries are being developed utilising a series of discrete subsea
production centres tied-back to a turret moored FPSO. In addition, the FPSO will provide both gas
injection and water injection service to the reservoirs in order to provide sweep and pressure support to
the production wells and gas export to supply Ghana gas infrastructure with volumes of sales gas.
The field layout and architecture is shown in Figure 1. The subjects of this Paper are the six oil
production lines as follows:
ENYENRA FIELD
 Two 5.2km parallel lines running from Enyenra Manifold-1 to Manifold-2
 Two 5.2km parallel lines running from Enyenra Manifold-2 to Manifold-3
NTOMME FIELD
 Two 7.2km parallel line running from Ntomme Manifold-1 to Ntomme Riser Base
TWENEBOA FIELD
 One 3.3km gas pipeline running from Tnag PLEM-North towards the FPSO to PLEM-South
Hence altogether six oil production lines connect the wells to the FPSO. However, in this Paper only the
four Enyenra lines have been presented, as the same technical design challenges were faced and the
same techniques were deployed for walking assessment of other lines.

Figure 1: Tullow TEN Field Layout

OTC-26240-MS 3

Pipeline Route and Seabed Profiles

Water depths along Enyenra production flowline routes vary between 1437m at manifold EM1 (i.e. cold
end) to 1794m at manifold EM3 (i.e. hot end). Manifold EM1 is connected to the Enyenra Riser Base.
From the riser base, flexible risers carry the fluids up to the FPSO turret. Flexible jumpers will be used
to connect the PLETs at each end of the pipeline to the manifolds. The East and West lines thus form a
looped bi-directional piggable system.
The seabed profiles for all four Enyenra lines are shown in Figure 2. The maximum seabed gradient
along shallower half of each line is about 3.1°. The average slope of all the lines is approximately 2°.
Figure 3 shows more details of the flowline layout. The two EM2-EM1 flowlines run in a straight line
without any route bend, whereas the two EM3-EM2 flowlines have a route bend, though with a large
radius of curvature, as can be seen in Figure 3.
Hot-oiling is an operation used to avoid formation of wax inside the pipeline when production oil
flowing in a cold pipe cools down below a critical temperature. This is achieved by circulating so called
“dead oil” from the FPSO via the risers, in through the pipelines and back to the FPSO again in a
continuous loop. Hot oil circulation could be in either direction.
For the purpose of walking direction it has been assumed that hot-oiling transients will flow downhill
along the East flowlines from Manifold EM1 through Manifold EM2 to Manifold EM3 (hereafter
referred it as Hot-Oil IN case) and back uphill along the West flowlines from Manifold EM3 through
Manifold EM2 to Manifold EM1 (hereafter referred it as Hot-Oil OUT case). Therefore, on the East
flowlines hot-oil flow direction will be opposite to the production flow direction, whereas on the West
flowlines both hot-oil and production flow directions will be in the same direction uphill towards the
FPSO, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 2: Seabed Profiles for East and West Flowlines Figure 3: Operational and Hot-Oiling Flow Direction for
West and East Flowlines

PIP Main Characteristics

The pipelines are ITP swaged PIP systems consisting of double joints, each 24.4m long. The double
joints are fabricated onshore by welding the two joints of inner pipe and two joints of outer pipe
separately. An insulating material (izoflex) is wrapped around the inner pipe. The inner pipe is inserted
into the outer pipe and the ends of the outer pipe are swaged and welded to the inner pipe, see Figure 4
and Figure 5. The pipeline is constructed by welding the double joints in the field in a vertical position
(on the J-lay installation vessel) and the field joint is covered by a sleeve section as shown in Figure 6.
OTC-26240-MS 4

The sleeve is 2.2m long and is also a PIP with Izoflex wrapped on its inner pipe. It consists of a central
section of 700mm long and 2x750mm long of side sections overlapping the outer main pipe. The sleeve
is not welded to the outer pipe but remains in position by injecting fast-setting PU resin into the
centralised annulus of the field joint. However, neither the Izoflex insulation nor PU resin were
modelled in the FE model which is presented later. The sleeve section is not relied upon to transfer the
axial loads in the outer main pipe.

Figure 4: Fabrication Sequence of the Swaged PIP

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

Figure 5: (a) Joining Double Joints of Pipe; (b) Izoflex Panels; (c) Inserting Inner Pipe; (d) Outer Pipe Swaged;
(e) Finished Double Joints

Figure 6: Field Joint Details (True Scale Representation)

OTC-26240-MS 5

Pipeline Dimensions
The dimensions of the PIP of the main pipeline and sleeve pipe are given in Table 1. Both East and West
flowlines have the same dimensions. The pipe material of all the lines will be of steel grade X65 PSL2
SMLS.
Table 1: Pipe Dimensional Data

Main Pipeline Sleeve Pipe

Parameter Units
Inner Pipe Outer Pipe Inner Pipe Outer Pipe

Nominal Outer Diameter mm 219.1 279.5 332 393

Nominal Wall Thickness mm 22.2 17.5 15.9 18.5

Transient Profiles
Temperature transient during flowline operation (start-up and shutdown cycles) is one of the primary
factors that contribute to the occurrence and rate of walking. Variations of transient profiles can alter the
content density, pipe submerged weight, and hence seabed friction and walking rate.
The transient profiles of inner pipe temperature and hot-oiling (both hot-oil IN and hot-oil OUT
conditions) that were used in walking analyses are presented in Figure 7 and Figure 8. In the analysis
runs the hot-oiling transient profiles were applied first followed by the operational transient steps
leading up to the steady state profile. However, during the shutdown phase the temperature was lowered
from the steady state condition down to the ambient sea temperature in a single step. Within each
analysis step the corresponding pressure and density profiles were also imposed. Cyclic loading was
simulated by repeatedly applying the set of Hot-oiling/start-up/shut-down steps.

Enyenra EM2 - EM1 Temperature Transient Profiles Operational Startup Case

90
80
70 0hrs
Temperature (ºC)

60 2hrs
50 3hrs

40 6hrs
7hrs
30
8hrs
20
9hrs
10
24hrs
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6

KP (km)

Figure 7: Enyenra Temperature Transient Profiles for Operational Case (East and West lines)
OTC-26240-MS 6

Enyenra EM2 - EM1 Temperature Transient Profiles Hot Oil In Case Enyenra EM2 - EM1 Temperature Transient Profiles Hot Oil Out Case
90 80
80 0.625hrs 70 2.5hrs
70 0.750hrs 2.75hrs
60
Temperature (ºC)

Temperature (ºC)
60 0.875hrs 3hrs
50
50 1.000hrs
40 3.25hrs
40
1.120hrs 3.5hrs
30 30
1.250hrs 3.75hrs
20 20
1.375hrs 8hrs
10 10
4.000hrs
0 0
0 2 4 6 0 2 4 6
KP (km) (a) KP (km) (b)
Figure 8: Enyenra Temperature Transient Profiles for Hot-Oiling
(a) East Line - Hot oil flowing IN and (b) West Line - Hot oil flowing OUT

It should be noted that a constant outer pipe temperature of 14°C was conservatively considered in the
model during the hot-oiling and production operational transients. This temperature was obtained from a
separate 3D thermal FE analysis of a full double joint section of the pipeline embedded in the seabed
soil with actual strength and thermal properties. The design life of the field is 20 years. Five full shut-
down cycles per year are planned. Hence the maximum numbers of anticipated full shutdowns of the
flowline (100 cycles over the field design life) were simulated in the walking FE analysis for the base
case scenario.

Pipe-Soil Interaction Parameters

The detailed walking analyses were performed using residual values of friction coefficients for both
axial and lateral directions, and they were simulated using the Coulomb friction model. This assumption
of axial friction is to conservatively maximise the axial displacements, since breakout values can
increase the resistance to pipe walking. All performed analyses for code check assessment consider the
friction values presented in Table 2. The friction factors and embedment values were provided by
Tullow based on geotechnical analyses by Fugro Advanced Geomechanics, and correspond to partially
drained conditions pertaining to the average axial speeds of the pipelines. Friction factors were assessed
for both rough and smooth coated pipe assumptions. For conservatism the smooth pipe values were
considered as given in Table 2.
Table 2: Axial and Lateral Friction Coefficients

Interaction Main ITP Joint

Friction level
Direction Pipeline Sleeve

LB 0.26 0.24

Axial BE 0.33 0.30

UB 0.62 0.66

LB 0.71 0.57

Lateral BE 1.14 0.84

UB 1.50 1.07

Controlled Buckling and Anchoring Sites

Early on during detailed design a comprehensive lateral buckling assessment was carried out in which
various components that might affect the flowline behaviour were investigated. This included different
OTC-26240-MS 7

configurations with regard to the position of walking restraint anchors, one and two buckle sites and
different number of sleepers placed underneath the flowline at the man-made trigger site at mid-length.
The results of this assessment indicated that an optimal solution is to use a set of three sleepers placed
20m apart from one another at the middle of each line at ~KP 2.6 to act as a buckle initiator, together
with two anchorage points at KP 1.5 and at the cold end (~KP 5.2), see Figure 9. The anchor system
consists of suction piles attached to the pipeline via steel chains. Figure 10 shows the schematics of one
of the FE models used for lateral buckling and walking.

The most optimal mitigation method selected was pre-installed suction anchors with restraining chains
connected to the anchorage points. The anchor at the cold end PLET will be installed with a single
suction pile with the chain attached to a strong point on the PLET structure in order to stop the flowline
from walking downhill. For the mid-line anchor at KP 1.5, a bolted clamp (Figure 11) will be deployed
to transfer flowline axial loads via a J-lay collar and through chains to the tops of two suction anchors
installed at either side of the flowline in order to limit the flowline walking downhill towards the PLET
at hot end and to avoid the allowable axial displacements there being exceeded. The upper sections of
suction anchors were fabricated in Holland and transported to Ghana for welding onto the rest of skirts.
Figure 12 shows the pile upper sections and chain stopper arrangement at pile tops.

Figure 9: Anchoring Schematic Details for Enyenra Flowlines

Figure 10: Flowline Configuration with Anchoring System in Place

OTC-26240-MS 8

Figure 11: Anchorage System Arrangement Showing the Bracket at KP1.5 and the J-Lay Collar

Figure 12: (a) Upper Sections of Suction Anchors and (b) Chain Stopper Arrangement at Pile Tops

End Expansion and Contraction Limits

The PLETs will be of the sliding rail type, where the top frame to which the pipeline is welded is able to
slide on rails attached to the skirted base mudmat. The PLETs were designed with pre-defined expansion
and contraction limits on sliding rails fixed to +1.5m and -0.5m, respectively.

FE Model Main Features

The same geometric global FE models as adopted in the lateral buckling analyses were used for walking
analyses. The entire walking assessment was performed using the FE software Abaqus (Ref. /3/). The
following sections describe the main features of the FE models in detail.
 A 2.5D FE model was used in which the pipeline is modelled and analysed in 3D but the seabed
is defined as having undulations only in the vertical plane along the pipeline i.e. the seabed
profile is simply extended horizontally in the normal direction to this vertical plane).
 Two-node, 3D pipe elements PIPE31 were used to model the pipe. These elements are capable of
modelling the internal/external pressure and applied temperature effects, pipe material non-
linearity, geometric non-linearity due to large displacement and/or rotation and friction/contact
with seabed and sleepers.
 The components of the PIP system, i.e. inner, outer and sleeve pipes were modelled as separate
entities. The inner, outer and sleeve pipes are concentric in that all nodes are initially located
along the pipe centrelines. At the swage joint connection, the inner and outer pipes share the same
OTC-26240-MS 9

node so that full moment connection is provided. Away from the swaged joint tube-to-tube ITT31
elements were used to model the contact between the inner and outer pipes.
 The sleeve pipes were modelled with B31 beam elements, which allow definition of beam general
section properties. This enables the sleeve pipe elements to be defined with negligible cross-
sectional area, thereby preventing any axial load transfer through the sleeve pipe. Moment
transfer at the field joint was modelled by means of multi-point constraints to couple the sleeve
pipe to the outer mainline pipe in the overlap regions (inherently assuming the resin is strong
enough in compression, but its bond with steel cannot be guaranteed).
 An appropriate mesh density needs to be used in order to adequately capture strain gradients at
buckle sites. Typically, element lengths of the order of one outer pipe diameter should be used
over the extent of the buckle, in line with SAFEBUCK recommendations, Ref. /2/. The global FE
model consisted of a 1m mesh density along the main pipe section, except in the vicinity of the
field joints where smaller element lengths of 0.2m were used. In addition, in the vicinity of the
man-made buckle trigger site (i.e. over sleepers region) a length of 150m was meshed with 0.2m
element size.
 During pipeline installation, some route deviations into the pipelay corridor are expected to occur.
These deviations are inherent to the installation process and are commonly treated as residual
lateral curvatures along the route. Such imperfections can have a big influence on the behaviour
of a flowline as they can trigger natural rogue buckles. As such, a sinusoidal initial imperfection
profile, as shown in Figure 13, was applied on the undulating seabed in the model to ensure a
greater potential for natural buckle formations.
 Walking behavior using non-linear pipe-soil interaction properties were assessed and compared
with the classical Coulomb friction law. The results indicated insignificant differences between
both approaches and the classical Coulomb friction law was adopted in walking analyses for
modelling the frictional interaction between pipeline and seabed. This simplification led to a
reasonable reduction in computational time.
 A Luders plateau curve was used to model the pipe material stress-strain relationship which is
considered appropriate for seamless linepipe. The material curve was de-rated in accordance with
the requirements of DNV-OS-F101 for carbon steel, Ref /1/. The levels of allowable strain
occurring during walking analyses are below the levels required to promote strain hardening in
the material, the effects of which may therefore be neglected.
 The walking analyses consisted of heating the inner pipe with hot-oiling transients first, followed
by production operational transients, after which a full shutdown simulation was performed where
both the inner and outer pipes were cooled down to ambient sea temperature of 4.8 degrees. The
pressure and density profiles corresponding to each temperature transient profile were imposed
simultaneously at each step of the analysis. This cycle (in all 23 steps) was then repeated for the
desired number of shut-downs, until the anchor forces reached effectively a steady state
condition, or a near-plateau behaviour was reached.
 Numerical damping (dashpots) was employed in the model in order to overcome the instabilities
during the onset of buckling and subsequent post-buckling/walking response. The influence of
this artificial damping on the post-buckle response was monitored for each step such that the total
damping energy dissipated was only a small fraction of the total energy in the model. Contact
damping was used both for the pipe-seabed interaction and ITT elements in order to achieve
convergence.
 It should be noted that KP 0 (left hand sign) in all the FE models corresponds to the Hot End
(deep end), whereas the end KP corresponds to the Cold End (shallow end).
OTC-26240-MS 10

Figure 14 depicts the salient features of the global FE walking model discussed in the points mentioned
above. This FE model represents all the structures and features that are presented in Figure 10 i.e. two
anchorages, one placed at KP 1.5 and the other at cold end (~KP 5.2), and three sleepers spaced at 20m
placed at KP 2.6. The FE model for the walking tendency runs was exactly the same as shown in Figure
10 except for the absence of the two anchorages. A slack of 100mm in the anchor chains was assumed.
The stiffness of the suction anchor was obtained from a 3D geotechnical soil-structure interaction
model. The stiffness contribution of the anchor chain was combined with that of the suction anchor.

Figure 13: Illustration of the Flowline Initial Sinusoidal Imperfection Profile

Figure 14: Global FE Model for Walking Analysis

OTC-26240-MS 11

Initial Out of Straightness

Pipeline initial out of straightness (OOS) is a key parameter in pipeline route evaluations and thermo-
mechanical analyses as a numerical trigger in FE models. It is intended to simulate the pipeline route
deviation due to the laying process within the pipelay corridor by applying a residual lateral curvature of
approximately 1.0km (as per recommendation of the SAFEBUCK JIP (Ref. /2/)) when no better
information is available).
In order to simulate the randomness of the initial OOS of the pipeline in the FE models as a numerical
trigger for initiation of lateral buckling a sinusoidal initial as laid profile was generated with an
amplitude of 2.0m and wave length of 400m. The initial OOS profile of the pipeline is illustrated in
Figure 13.

Strain Concentration Factor

The FE model described is efficient and captures the lateral buckling and walking global behaviour of
the ITP system in very well. However, the bending capacity of the ITP pipe-in-pipe system is governed
by the local buckling capacity of the outer sleeve pipe adjacent to the sleeve pipe location. The stress
resultant PIPE31 elements used for the lateral buckling and walking analysis are not capable of
predicting local buckling of a pipe cross section, hence a strain concentration factor (SNCF) needs to be
applied to account for the increase in compressive strain due to local buckling.
A detailed FE model of a double joint was prepared using 3D solid elements (C3D8R), see Figure 15.
The model was subjected to a range of bending, pressure and axial loads and the increase in strain levels
over the nominal strain in the inner and outer pipes due to the presence of the ITP field joint assembly
was examined. Bonded and unbonded resin assumptions were assessed. Based on these results, a strain
concentration factor of 1.4 for the outer pipe of the Enyenra pipelines was obtained, which was used
when performing the DNV DCC checks. The SNCF was based on 0.7% longitudinal strain and
conservatively applied in all calculations even if the lower longitudinal strain was found in the walking
analysis.

(a) (b)

Figure 15: (a) Strain Contours at 45m Radius of Curvature – Unbonded Resin and (b) Outer Pipe Compressive Strains
at Different Curvature Radii

Description of Subsea7’s Pipeline Design GUI

In parallel with the Tullow TEN project, a special GUI tool (named SPLATter) was developed to speed
up and standardize the creation, visual verification, running and post processing of pipeline design
models. The software tool has been described in detail in Ref. /6/ and encapsulates all the knowledge of
experienced pipeline engineers. The tool is Microsoft Excel-based, but the post-processing uses Python
OTC-26240-MS 12

scripts, written separately and incorporated. Input files created are easy-to-read and fully parameterized
so that any re-work to accommodate data changes is minimized and integration with Simulia’s Isight
software for parametric studies is straight-forward. Figure 16 shows the images of SPLATter
screenshots. The user fills in the data into nine separate modules. The GUI incorporates live diagrams
that show pipe length, geometry distribution, mesh refinement, trigger locations, initial out-of-
straightness and numerous other pieces of information, to help the user instantly verify the models. The
tool caters for lateral buckling, walking, on bottom roughness, and free span assessments. SPLATter is
one of several applications that are under development which will interface with Isight to increase the
efficiency of analysis processes and enhance the quality of the results. In essence, the aim is to move
from deterministic towards probabilistic pipeline assessments. Post-processing effort in the present
walking analysis runs was drastically reduced and output presentation made extremely practical.

Figure 16: SPLATter Screenshots

Walking Screening Assessments

The flowline walking phenomenon normally occurs in ‘short’ flowlines and is due to high thermal
transient gradients in combination with seabed slopes and pipe-soil interaction parameters during a large
number of start-up/shutdown cycles anticipated over the design life. For typical single wall oil pipelines
OTC-26240-MS 13

analytical models, based on SAFEBUCK III Guidelines (Ref. /2/) and programmed into e.g. Mathcad
can be used to perform an initial assessment of the tendency for walking. However in the TEN project
the ITP pipe in pipe system, with its discontinuous outer pipe and locally stiffer bending properties at
sleeve joints, is too complex and standard analytical models cannot be applied. Furthermore, the
interaction between lateral buckling and pipeline walking is quite complicated, as such a simple
analytical expression cannot capture such complex response, and hence requires the use of FEA to
investigate the phenomena fully.
The global FE models with full design transients on undulating seabed profile without any anchors in
place were run first. This revealed whether the line has any tendency for walking in any direction i.e.
walk uphill or downhill. It also determines the locations of maximum displacement and end expansions.
The walking tendency analyses were performed with the BE axial and UB lateral friction factor
combination. This combination was the agreed the base case in the project. It is expected that if the
pipeline has a tendency to walk with this friction combination, it would also walk with the LB axial and
UB lateral friction factor combination. The LB axial friction factor maximises the axial displacements,
while the UB lateral friction factor minimises the lateral displacements (e.g. over natural buckles), and
consequently it feeds into the axial displacements. The results showed a tendency for all the lines to
walk downhill towards the hot end. Figure 17 and Figure 18 show the cases for hot oiling in the opposite
and same direction as production flow, respectively. Comparison of the response of hot and cold ends in
the two cases show that the hot ends move downhill at almost the same rate. Whereas the cold end of hot
oiling in opposite direction case moves downhill at about twice the rate of the hot oiling in the same
direction case. The seabed profiles are almost identical and only the explanation for the difference in this
response is the direction of hot-oiling. In the hot-oiling-IN case the top half of the pipeline is feeding
into the buckle at a greater rate. However, in both cases a mitigation measure is necessary.

Figure 17: Axial Displacement History of Hot and Cold Ends for Enyenra East (Hot Oiling in Opposite Direction to
Production Flow)
OTC-26240-MS 14

Figure 18: Axial Displacement History of Hot and Cold Ends for Enyenra West (Hot Oiling in Same Direction to
Production Flow)

Walking Assessment with Anchors in Place

The Enyenra flowlines have shown to be complex pipelines due to their makeup and operational
characteristics, which involve not only the operational transients but also hot-oiling transients. The
anchors have to be designed to support 100 full shutdown cycles, which is a high number of cycles and
from experience of other projects could potentially generate unpredictable change of buckle
configuration during operation.
The main objectives to be considered in the FE walking assessment are summarised as follows:
- Determine the axial expansion at both pipeline ends.
- Propose a mitigation measure against excessive walking.
- Define the optimum anchor locations along the pipeline.
- Determine the anchor forces at proposed anchor locations.
- Determine the lateral ratcheting at buckles formed over sleepers to confirm the required sleeper
length is sufficient.
- Determine if so called “rogue” or uncontrolled buckles will be formed on seabed.
- Understand the walking behaviour and the amount of pipeline walking to ensure integrity during
design life.
- Understand the effects of a large number of start-up/shutdown cycles over pipeline response.
OTC-26240-MS 15

Interaction between pipeline walking and buckling can cause the pipeline to walk into (or out of) the
buckles. Over a number of cycles, stresses in the buckle increase due to increased feed-in to the buckle
sites or excessive axial/lateral displacements due to buckle pull-out. This is potentially problematic
when assigning walking mitigation measures. Therefore, in order to ensure that the buckle mitigation
solution does not create an additional walking issue, buckles and anchors must be positioned at optimal
locations, thereby halting any walking, while refraining from aggravating an existing buckle or initiating
a new buckle.
In case of anchors being necessary to mitigate excessive displacements, the first trial with anchorage
points should be at termination structures (i.e. PLETs) away from which the pipeline is walking, such
that the anchor puts the pipeline into tension. The reasons are firstly that the PLETs typically have an
allowable expansion/contraction; secondly this reduces the risk of triggering a buckle due to the
presence of an anchor; and thirdly PLETs are the safest points along the pipeline route to attach such
anchoring systems. Other points along the mid-line would need additional friction clamps attached to
specific positions of pipeline. However, additional anchors at mid-line could not be disregarded in case
walking mitigation is not achieved with anchors at termination structures.
Generally, the selection of anchor location is based on the distribution of effective axial force. Ideally
the anchor is placed at point of maximum compression force along the pipeline (i.e. virtual anchor
points) where significant walking is observed. This location is selected such that the altered effective
axial force due to anchoring does not cause a buckle to form in the pipeline. Nevertheless, in some cases
anchoring may still cause a ‘rogue’ buckle to form.
The buckle initiation positions were defined at the Lateral Buckling analysis stage. However, during
walking analyses the sleepers have a large influence over pipeline response. They dictate the amount of
axial displacement (i.e. pipe feed-in) that each section could have. Sleepers can cause one section of the
pipeline to receive or give axial displacements from or to other sections of the pipeline depending on the
severity of the buckle formed over them. Receiving feed-in from other sections the pipeline over
sleepers can accumulate lateral displacement at the buckle crown, tightening the radius of curvature
there and consequently affecting pipe integrity. Therefore, sleeper positions may need a final adjustment
due to walking assessment depending on pipeline response.
The history of anchor forces in the two anchorage points with analysis step number are plotted in Figure
19. Note that each start-up/shut-down cycle consists of 23 analysis steps. The anchor force at KP 1.5
reaches a peak value of 30te to within about 3 cycles of the slack in the chain being taken up. In contrast
the force in the cold end anchor reaches peak value of 75te, i.e. at the uphill end, is higher and builds
more slowly to a plateau at around step 400 (17 cycles), thereafter it continues to increase at reducing
rate as the pipeline feeds downhill into the buckle site.

This can be seen further from Figure 20 where axial displacements of the hot and cold ends are plotted
against step number. The hot end displacements get halted quickly by the anchor at KP 1.5. However,
the cold end continues to move down towards the buckle site. The response here reflects the anchors
behaviour at this location, as does the form of response of the lateral displacement history at buckle
crown shown in Figure 21.
OTC-26240-MS 16

Figure 19: Anchor Forces History at KP 1.5 and Cold End for Enyenra East (Hot Oiling in Opposite Direction to
Production Flow)

Figure 20: Axial Displacement History of Hot and Cold Ends for Enyenra East (Hot Oiling in Opposite Direction to
Production Flow)
OTC-26240-MS 17

Figure 21: Lateral Displacement History of Buckle Crown for Enyenra East (Hot Oiling in Opposite Direction to
Production Flow)

Walking analysis runs are computationally expensive. The size of the Abaqus Output Data Base (*.odb
file) generated was typically 40GB, with the output request clinically reduced to the critically stages of
each cycle only. Without this judicially selected output request the size of this file approached an order
of magnitude greater. This selective output request had an added advantage of drastically reducing the
wall clock time on the machine, as a major proportion of the total time is spent on disk operations,
mainly writing output data.
As mentioned earlier SPLATter proved extremely useful in reducing the effort involved in extracting the
appropriate output data from the Abaqus runs and plotting, as well as performing code checking
operations and plotting the results in graphical form, ready for inclusion in the reports. The interrogation
and extraction of the Abaqus output data base was by means of python scripts written in Python. In
Error! Reference source not found. a large amount of output information has been presented in a
compact format, as produced and plotted by SPLATter. In all the plots in Error! Reference source not
found. the variables have been plotted against pipeline KP. In the top 3 sub-plots the variables have
been plotted after every 10 cycles, whereas in the last subplot the results show conditions after the first
and last cycle. In top down order the sub-plots are: Lateral displacement, Axial displacement (feed-in),
Effective axial force and DNV DCC unity check.
These plots help to see at a glance the salient response characteristics of the pipeline, such as the
maximum buckle crown displacement, formation of rogue buckles, etc. and when and where they
develop. In the particular case presented, it can be seen that no rogue buckles will from throughout the
design life of the pipeline. The majority of feed-in takes place within the first 10 cycles. The effective
axial force of the inner pipe reduces to a much lower value at the position of each field joint and picks
up again over the double pipe section. The maximum DCC unity checks reaches 0.73 in the outer pipe
over the crown of the buckle, whereas in the inner pipe it remains below 0.1. The anchor forces for the
corresponding parallel line (EM2-EM1 West), where Hot-oiling is in the same direction as production
flow, were 34te and 45te, for the KP 1.5 and cold end anchors, respectively.
OTC-26240-MS 18

Figure 22: Lateral Displacements, Axial Displacements, Effective Axial Force and DCC Unity Check along the Enyenra
East Flowline Length at Periodic Cycles

Sensitivity Analysis Cases

The Base Case pipe-soil friction factor combination was BE axial/UB lateral. BE axial is used because it
provides a more realistic representation of the overall soil axial friction, whereas UB lateral is used to
minimise lateral buckling and thus maximise the walking displacements. To demonstrate the robustness
of the solutions considered in the design, several sensitivity cases were analysed to capture the effect of
various combinations of axial and lateral friction factors:
- LB-UB case was used to determine the maximum walking displacements.
- BE-UB case was used to capture the maximum range of anchor forces.
- UB-UB and UB-BE cases were used to assess the potential for any rogue (unplanned) buckles
being formed.

Numerical Convergence Issues and Resolutions

Altogether 28 walking analyses had to be performed using 7 different FE models and 4 soil friction
combinations. Inevitable several convergence problems were encountered during the analyses due to the
presence of multiple contact conditions in the models. A few techniques that were developed to cope
with these convergence problems are briefly discussed below.
The *CONTACT DAMPING was used for both the ITT and pipe-seabed contacts. The contact of ITT
elements was quite sensitive to the value of damping coefficient and had to be found by trial and error.
But the greater proportion of problems were related to the contact of pipeline with seabed. The slip-slick
nature of seabed contact is aggravated in walking problems due to the constant changes in differential
axial movements of nodes along the pipeline. Having different friction coefficients locally over the
length of sleeve section at every 24.4m compounded this problem. Closer inspection of the problems
OTC-26240-MS 19

indicated that typically nodes would get stuck either side of “ridges” on the seabed, even though these
were barely visible on elevation views. Nevertheless the higher than normal weight of the pipeline
meant that even the slightest change in angle between segments of seabed definition would cause
problems to the contact algorithm.
A facility was built into SPLATter whereby any two adjacent segments with a difference in relative
slope angle below a certain limit are joined and made into a single segment having the average slope. In
this way the large numbers of regular segment lengths defining the seabed were drastically reduced. A
large saving was made in processing time since the load on the contact search algorithm is reduced
greatly. These ridges are unrealistic, since a pipeline on soft clay flattens the very soft seabed features
and forms a continuous profile on the seabed; see Figure 23 (a).
For the same reason of seabed softness a second facility was built into SPLATter to search and calculate
the largest permissible “fillet radius”. It was found that this permissible fillet radius for typical seabed
definitions is surprisingly large (for soft clay sites such as West Africa and Brazil of the order 5m to
10m, for typical survey accuracies reported) and improves convergence rates drastically, see Figure 23
(b) for illustration. The limiting vale of fillet radius is given by the expression below:

𝐿
R < α
2 tan 90 −
2
Where:
𝐿 = segment length
= angle between segments

(a)

(b)

Figure 23: (a) Eliminating “Nearly In-Line” Segments and (b) Maximum Allowable Fillet Radius. Note: vertical scale
exaggerated for illustration.
OTC-26240-MS 20

Despite the above devices, viscous dashpots in the all three directions (axial, vertical and lateral) had to
be used to numerically damp out the large trial displacement increments in some iterations. The dashpot
constants were carefully calculated and selected as a compromise between convergence rate and
minimum artificial viscous damping in the system. The use of automatic stabilization option was
avoided due to the “black box” nature of this facility in Abaqus. Typically a subsequent “rest step” is
necessary following a step utilising the “stabilise” option in order to dissipate any artificially stored
viscous damping energy. This might be acceptable for example in VAS analyses where the total number
of steps is not large, but for walking analyses it would literally double the already large number of steps
in the analyses.

Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the management of Subsea7 and Tullow TEN for permission to publish this
work.

Nomenclature
3D Three-Dimensional
BE Best Estimate
DNV Det Norsk Veritas
DCC Displacement Controlled Criteria
FE Finite Element
FEA Finite Element Analysis
FPSO Floating Production Storage and Offloading
KP Kilometre Point
LB Lower Bound
OOS Out of Straightness
PIP Pipe-In-Pipe
PLET Pipeline End Termination
PU Polyurethane
SNCF Strain Concentration Factor
TEN Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme
UB Upper Bound
VAS Virtual Anchor Spacing

References
/1/ DNV-OS-F101 (2013); “Submarine Pipeline Systems”, Det Norske Veritas.
/2/ SAFEBUCK III, “Safe Design of Pipelines with Lateral Buckling, Design Guidelines”,
5087471/01/A, 2011.
/3/ Abaqus/Standard 6.12-3, Dassault Systemes Simulia Corp., Providence, RI, USA.
/4/ Carr M., Sinclair F., Bruton D., Boreas Consultants, “Pipeline Walking – Understanding the Field
Layout Challenges, and Analytical Solutions Developed for the SAFEBUCK JIP”, Offshore
Technology Conference, OTC 17945, May 2006.
/5/ Ragupathy, P, Luckyram, J, Hesar, M and Sriskandarajah, T, “Short HPHT Flowlines in Deep Water
– Technical Challenges for Lateral Buckling and Flowline Walking Design”, Offshore Pipeline
Technology Conference, Amsterdam, February 2011.
OTC-26240-MS 21

/6/ Charnaux C., Paul, S., Roberts, G. “Increasing the efficiency of offshore rigid pipeline lateral
buckling assessments using a dedicated GUI and Isight”, Simulia Community Conference 2015,
Berlin, Germany.