Numerical study on lateral buckling of fully bonded sandwich pipes

Abstract

Sandwich pipes (SP) are promising subsea pipelines for deep-water applications. Thus, their lateral buckling response is a significant design aspect. The temperature field of SP denotes the load in lateral buckling analysis, and it is calculated using the heat transfer differential equation in this study. A general temperature field formula is proposed for an arbitrary multilayer SP, and this formula is verified by finite element models. Another finite element model based on the fiber shell element is then constructed to investigate the lateral buckling response of SP. They are validated by existing experimental and numerical results. The evolution of the lateral buckling profiles and of stress distribution are studied in consideration of nonlinear pipe-soil interaction and nonlinear material constitutive law. Moreover, the influence of initial imperfections and pipe-soil interaction on lateral buckling response is examined. Finally, a formula is approximated for a SP with a half-wave sinusoidal imperfection profile on the basis of dimensionless analysis and numerical results. This formula is convenient for engineering applications.