Time Domain Simulation of the 3D Bending Hysteresis Behaviour of an Unbonded Flexible Riser
This paper presents a ‘state of art’ in the development of the time domain dynamic simulation of 3D bending hysteresis behaviour of a flexible riser under offshore environment loading. The main technical challenge is to understand and model the riser tensile armour behaviour under continuous changes in both the magnitude and direction of bending, and its subsequent impact on the riser’s bending hysteresis characteristics. Because of this technical obstacle, the current industry practice is to model the riser as a linear structure, with certain conservatism enforced, and then to extract the global dynamic loads to a detailed local model for stress and life assessment. This paper introduces two 3D flexible riser bending hysteresis models, developed by Wellstream and Orcina respectively, and their calibrations against the bending hysteresis loops measured in full scale tests. Both models are implemented using the analysis program OrcaFlex; the Wellstream model is a detailed model that calculates both the total bending moment and the stresses in the tensile armour; the Orcina model is a simpler model that only calculates the total bending moment. A study is presented to illustrate the difference in the riser dynamic responses with and without consideration of the bending hysteresis behaviour, and to assess the difference in the dynamic responses between the Wellstream and Orcina 3D bending hysteresis models. This development permits more realistic riser structural properties to be modeled in the dynamic simulation, and reports detailed time history stress or strain results of the strength components of the riser. This expands the current practice of riser fatigue analysis of only using the regular wave approach, to using an irregular wave approach employing the rainflow counting method.