Abstract

This paper presents results of an experimental study on 3-dimensional scour at submarine pipelines with uniform sediments under a unidirectional steady current. A dimensional analysis is first conducted to identify all the important non-dimensional parameters. Laboratory experiments are then conducted to study the development of a 3-dimensional pipeline scour hole under different sets of environmental conditions. The results are recorded and the corresponding propagation velocities of the free span calculated. The effects of four parameters on the propagation velocity are studied through the conduct of several groups of experiments; each of which exclusively focuses on one particular parameter. Moreover, the scour pattern under different combinations of environmental conditions is discussed to obtain an improved understanding on the mechanism of scour hole propagation at the span shoulder of pipelines.

Highlights

  • Since scouring has been recognized as one of the major causes of submarine pipeline failure, numerous studies have been conducted in this area over the past 30 years

  • This paper presents results of an experimental study on 3-dimensional scour at submarine pipelines with uniform sediments under a unidirectional steady current

  • The following section discusses the development of 3-dimensional pipeline scour in steady current based on the observation and data of propagation velocity calculated from the experiments

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Summary

Introduction

Since scouring has been recognized as one of the major causes of submarine pipeline failure, numerous studies have been conducted in this area over the past 30 years. Pipeline-scour holes are 3-dimensional in the field, most published experimental studies and numerical modelling of pipeline-scour are performed with a 2-dimensional model (Sumer and Freds0e, 2002). This is because of the expense associated with building physical models in the laboratory and high demand on computational capacity related to numerical sinmlations. To better understand the development of a scour hole at submarine pipelines in the field, this study aims to examine the 3-dimensional characteristics of pipeline-scour. The objective of the present study focuses on the first process, i.e., propagation of the 3-dimensional scour hole at pipelines, which is characterized by the scour hole dimensions at different time stages and the SCOUR AND EROSION propagation velocity of the scour hole along the pipeline axis (Fig. I), VI.' which is defined by:

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