Submarine debris flow impact on pipelines — Part I: Experimental investigation

Estimating the impact forces exerted by a submarine debris flow on a pipeline is a challenge, and there is room for considerably more work to advance the state of the art. To this end, an experimental program was performed to investigate the impact on two pipeline installation scenarios: 1) suspended pipeline and 2) laid-on-seafloor pipeline. The results and observations from the experimental investigation are discussed. The definition of Reynolds number was modified for non-Newtonian fluids and an ad hoc method was developed to estimate the drag force exerted by an impact perpendicular to the pipe axis. The method may be used in prototype situations to estimate the drag force from submarine debris flow impact on pipelines. The experimental program was complemented by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses, the details of which are discussed in the accompanying paper.

[1]  P. B. Summers,et al.  An Approximate Procedure for Assessing the Effects of Mudslides on Offshore Pipelines , 1985 .

[2]  Arash Zakeri,et al.  Submarine debris flow impact on pipelines — Part II: Numerical analysis , 2009 .

[3]  F. White.  Viscous Fluid Flow , 1974 .

[4]  Warren T. Jones,et al.  Mudslide Effects on Offshore Pipelines , 1982 .

[5]  J. M. Robertson,et al.  FORCES ON BODIES IN BINGHAM FLUIDS , 1975 .

[6]  C. Crowe,et al.  Engineering fluid mechanics , 1975 .

[7]  Philippe Coussot,et al.  Mudflow Rheology and Dynamics , 1997 .

[8]  Michael C. Georgiadis,et al.  LANDSLIDE DRAG FORCES ON PIPELINES , 1991 .

[9]  Ikuo Towhata,et al.  Lateral Loads On Offshore Structures Exerted by Submarine Mudflows , 1988 .

[10]  H. Norem,et al.  An approach to the physics and the modeling of submarine flowslides , 1990 .

[11]  R. Lien,et al.  Flow models of natural debris flows originating from overconsolidated clay materials , 2004 .

[12]  Richard Schapery,et al.  Prediction Of Storm-Induced Sea Bottom Movement And Platform Forces , 1978 .

[13]  Jeffrey G. Marr,et al.  Hydroplaning of subaqueous debris flows and glide blocks: Analytical solutions and discussion , 2003 .

[14]  Kenneth R. Demars,et al.  Design of Marine Pipelines for Areas of Unstable Sediment , 1978 .

[15]  Jasim Imran,et al.  A numerical model of submarine debris flow with graphical user interface , 2001 .

[16]  Lin Jiang,et al.  Numerical modeling of an underwater Bingham plastic mudslide and the waves which it generates , 1993 .

[17]  R. Nova,et al.  EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF SOIL-PIPE INTERACTION , 2004 .

[18]  Ravi P. Aurora,et al.  Design of Pipelines in Mudslide Areas , 1982 .

[19]  Roberto Zenit,et al.  Dense granular flow around an immersed cylinder , 2003 .

[20]  Jacques Locat,et al.  VISCOSITY, YIELD STRESS, REMOLDED STRENGTH, AND LIQUIDITY INDEX RELATIONSHIPS FOR SENSITIVE CLAYS , 1988 .

[21]  Peter Gauer,et al.  under a Creative Commons License. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences Emerging insights into the dynamics of submarine debris flows , 2022 .

[22]  K. Wieghardt.  Experiments in Granular Flow , 1975 .

[23]  J. L. Casamor,et al.  Slope failure dynamics and impacts from seafloor and shallow sub-seafloor geophysical data: case studies from the COSTA project , 2004 .

[24]  J. Alexander,et al.  The physical character of subaqueous sedimentary density flows and their deposits , 2001 .

[25]  Arash Zakeri,et al.  Review of State-Of-The-Art: Drag Forces on Submarine Pipelines and Piles Caused by Landslide or Debris Flow Impact , 2009 .

[26]  Gary Parker,et al.  Experiments on the relative mobility of muddy subaqueous and subaerial debris flows, and their capacity to remobilize antecedent deposits , 1999 .