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Broken armour wire

Tension is applied to a short segment of flexible pipe. Then a wire is broken and the tension is further increased.

E044 overview
Figure 1. Bflex model of a flexible pipe.

Model description

Flexible pipe

Two different models are provided:

  1. A model applying 16 wires in each layer, where each represents an equal share of wires in the layer

  2. A model applying 8 representative wires in the outer layer, while the inner layer has 8 single wires and 7 scaled wires representing the remaining armour wires

Boundary conditions and loads

Global

One end of the pipe is fixed in all degrees of freedom:

#      Type   NodId  DOF
# end 1
BONCON GLOBAL 1 1
BONCON GLOBAL 1 2
BONCON GLOBAL 1 3
BONCON GLOBAL 1 4
BONCON GLOBAL 1 5
BONCON GLOBAL 1 6

and loaded by internal pressure and tension in the other end:

#      Hist   Dir  NODE Load   
CLOAD  100    1    41   0.25
#
#       Hist Elnr1   P1  Elnr2  P2
PILOAD   200  3001   2  3040   2
#

Armour wire boundary conditions

The armour wires are fixed in all translatory degrees of freedom (1,2,3) an in torsion (4) at both ends. These boundary conditions are in the helix system and represent no axial sliding (dof 1), no transvers sliding (dof 2), no radial contraction (dof 3) and no twisting about the armour wire axis (dof 4)

BONCON GLOBAL 10001	1
repeat 16 41
BONCON GLOBAL 10001	2
repeat 16 41
BONCON GLOBAL 10001	3
repeat 16 41
BONCON GLOBAL 10001	4
repeat 16 41
#
BONCON GLOBAL 10041	1
repeat 16 41
BONCON GLOBAL 10041	2
repeat 16 41
BONCON GLOBAL 10041	3
repeat 16 41
BONCON GLOBAL 10041	4
repeat 16 41
#
BONCON GLOBAL 20001	1
repeat 16 41
BONCON GLOBAL 20001	2
repeat 16 41
BONCON GLOBAL 20001	3
repeat 16 41
BONCON GLOBAL 20001	4
repeat 16 41
#
BONCON GLOBAL 20041	1
repeat 16 41
BONCON GLOBAL 20041	2
repeat 16 41
BONCON GLOBAL 20041	3
repeat 16 41
BONCON GLOBAL 20041	4
repeat 16 41

Scaling of wires

When a wire is used to repreent more than one wire, scaling of the wire properties must be given by a factor:

ELPROP tenslayer1    shearhelix rectangle     5e-3        2e-3       0.0785e-6 0.0   3.81         300    300   -10  
ELPROP tenslayer2    shearhelix rectangle     5e-3        2e-3       0.0785e-6 0.0   4.06         300    300   -10

The corresponding contact must be scaled with the same factor:

#      EleGroupName  EleType       Gap0  TuneTime  AUTOMNPC  AutoSearch Scalefact
ELPROP contlayer1    layercontact  D     D         D         D          3.81
ELPROP contlayer2    layercontact  D     D         D         D          3.81
ELPROP contlayer3    layercontact  D     D         D         D          4.06
ELPROP contlayer4    layercontact  D     D         D         D          4.06

Wire break

The process of breaking the wire(s) is modelled by use of the ELHIST approach. This allows for the stiffness of an element to be scaled with a time history THIST. If the scaling is negative, the stiffnesses are set to zero. In this model, the stiffness is hence reduced from full level to zero during the time span 4 to 5 s into the analysis.

#       elstart	elend hist		
ELHIST  10321   10321 500
#
THIST 500   0.0	 1.0
            4.0	 1.0
	    6.0	-1.0
	   10.0 -1.0

Mixing single and representative wires in one layer

To obtain a combination of single and representative wires in the same layer, two separate element groups are applied. The nodes for each group must be positioned according to the circumferential fraction the group should fill, and with proper angular spacing.

This also requires two separate set of contact groups to be defined towards the inside layer and the outside layer.

Results

The images below shows the axial stresse in the inner layer after wires have been broken. For the 16 wires model, one wire represents 3.81 single wires.

E044 result 01
Figure 2. Bflex 16 wires model. Stresses in the inner layer after wire break (3.81 wires) and further tensile loading.
E044 result 02
Figure 3. Bflex model of single wires. Stresses in the inner layer after wire break (4 wires) and further tensile loading.
When stresses are displayed, the broken elements will display a dummy (high) value.

Relevant files

You will have to extend the simulation time to 10 s.

Go to bflex2010 file - Model with 16 representative wires in each layer

Go to bflex2010 file - MOdel with 8 representative wires in the outer layer, 8 single + 7 representative wires in the inner layer

User manual for reference

Processing of files from command line

  • bflex2010 -n bflex2010_01

  • bflex2010 -n bflex2010_02

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