Modeling and Characterization of Novel Deepwater Marine Risers

Amaechi, Chiemela Victor and Ye, Jianqiao (2017) Modeling and Characterization of Novel Deepwater Marine Risers. In: Lancaster University Postgraduate Research Conference PGRC2017, 2017-05-06 - 2017-05-06, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

Offshore explorations has moved from shallow waters to deep waters. This requires longer risers, resulting in significant weight increase. To improve riser technology, composite materials can be used. They offer advantages that can be harnessed. These include high corrosion resistance, fatigue resistance, high strength characteristics and weight savings since they are lightweight with low bending stiffness. Currently, there are approximately 3,400 deep water wells in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) having depths greater than 150 meters, and a worldwide undiscovered deep water reserves estimated to exceed 200 billion barrels and 25% of the total US reserves (BOEM, 2016), while others are in regions such as Angola, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, India, Morocco and the UK. The application of composite risers in offshore engineering for ultra-deep applications has been facing a lot of challenges, such as in West Africa and Gulf of Mexico. Presently, the steel catenary risers are used for deep water applications requiring large diameter pipes, and both the flexible and top-tensioned risers are used for shallow water applications. Current trend in the industry is the application of composite riser technology used mostly for deep waters, which have over 1000m depth. The first time composite risers were successfully deployed offshore was on Heidrun Platform in 1995 as a composite joint. This started the success in the historical trend of composite riser development. This research involves hydrodynamic loading using ANSYS AQWA. The main research focus on the characterization and the behaviour as regards the fatigue of composite risers. ANSYS APDL & ANSYS ACP are used to model the composite materials, create the composite layers for the materials like AS4/PEEK. This was done considering the mechanical properties of the composite material. Some coupling analysis on a floating platform using the risers and mooring is also being investigated.