RISER CONCEPTS FOR DEEP WATERS

Abstract

Oil and gas exploration and production activities in deep and ultra deep waters in hostile environments necessitates the need to develop innovative riser systems capable of ensuring transfer of fluids from the seabed to a floating vessel and vice versa, with little or no issues with respect to influences of environmental loads and vessel motions.The design of the riser system must focus on different types of loading and load effects than for traditional water-depth. A variety of different riser concepts are proposed, both with respect to geometric shape and selection of materials.In the last few years, steel catenary risers have been a preferred riser solution for deep-water field developments due to its simple engineering concept, cost effective, flexibility in using different host platform and flexibility in geographical and environmental conditions. In this report, a case study considering a steel catenary riser operating in 1000 m water depth was conducted. The riser was subjected to extreme environmental conditions and static and dynamic response analyses were performed by the computer program RIFLEX.Last, parametric study is carried out to investigate the effects of parameter variation based on some parameters like current profiles, mesh density, wall thickness and so on. These parameters have significant effect on the structural response, especially in the touch down region.