Wave loading fatigue reliability and uncertainty analyses for geotechnical pipeline models

The challenges involved with the fatigue damage assessment of a catenary pipeline in the touchdown zone (TDZ) are primarily because of the non-linear behaviour of pipe–seabed interaction and considerable uncertainty in geotechnical model parameters. The research undertaken in this study investigates the sensitivity of fatigue performance to geotechnical parameters through a parametric study. Furthermore, this paper presents the probability of failure associated with fatigue analysis of a catenary pipeline in the TDZ due to the uncertainty in seabed response model and geotechnical parameters. A first-order reliability method is used for predicting the fatigue safety index. The fatigue analysis results prove that the confounding results indicated by the previous research studies on the catenary pipeline in the TDZ are due to different geotechnical parameters imposed with the soil model. The main benefit of employing a reliability-based fatigue analysis framework is that it enhances the confidence in the steel catenary riser analysis with seabed interaction.

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