A coupled numerical approach for nonlinear dynamic fluid‐structure interaction analysis of a near‐bed submarine pipeline

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop an effective numerical approach to assess the nonlinear dynamic responses of a near‐bed submarine pipeline.

Design/methodology/approach

A coupled numerical approach is proposed in this paper to assess the nonlinear dynamic responses of this pipeline. The boundary‐element method is first used to get the nonlinear dynamic fluid loading induced by the asymmetric flow. The meshless technique is used to discretize the structure of the pipeline. A numerical example is first presented to verify the effectivity of the present method. Then, the coupled technique is used to simulate the nonlinear dynamic fluid‐structure interaction problem of a near‐bed pipeline. A Newton‐Raphson iteration procedure is used herein to solve the nonlinear system of equations, and the Newmark method is adopted for the time integration.

Findings

The presence of seabed results in a large negative lift on a pipeline in a horizontal current. Studies reveal that there exists a critical current velocity, above which the pipeline will become instable, and the critical velocity is significantly affected by the initial gap from the pipeline to the seabed.

Originality/value

The near‐bed submarine pipeline is a widely used structure in marine engineering. This paper originally develops a numerical approach to model this special fluid‐structure interaction problem. It has demonstrated by the examples that the present approach is very effective and has good potential in the practical applications.

Citation

Gu, Y.T. and Wang, Q. (2008), "A coupled numerical approach for nonlinear dynamic fluid‐structure interaction analysis of a near‐bed submarine pipeline", Engineering Computations, Vol. 25 No. 6, pp. 569-588. https://doi.org/10.1108/02644400810891553