COMPOSITE HOOP WOUND STEEL TUBES FOR DRILLING RISER APPLICATIONS

The development of very deep offshore drillings outlines the need for mass reduction of the drilling riser. This aim can be achieved, in an interesting way, by decreasing the weight of the two heavy high pressure Kill and Choke lines, fitted on the drilling riser main body. This article presents the work performed by Composites Aquitaine and IFP to develop and qualify new type of lightweight composite hoop wound pipes for this special application. These tubes are made of a steel pipe reinforced by a prestressed winding of unidirectional thermoplastic-aramid composite. The winding parameters are carefully calculated to optimize the distribution of tension/compression stresses in the constitutive materials of the tube.