On-bottom Stability Design of Submarine Pipelines: The Fundamentals

Pipelines are major cost of items in the oil and gas field development. Poor on-bottom stability design may lead to fatigue, lateral and propagation buckling problems. Consequently, additional cost may be incurred during pipeline design and construction due to critical problems relating to poor design. But cost related to the on-bottom stability problem can be significantly reduced by optimizing design. This paper presents comparative review of submarine pipelines on-bottom stability design methods. Comparing absolute lateral stability, generalized lateral stability and traditional force balance methods show variation in submerged weight and effect of pipe-soil interaction on submerged weight parameters. Overall, most literatures agreed that pipelines lateral stability can be increased by increasing porosity of soil, soil embedment and submerged weight. But steel wall and concrete thicknesses are the major parameters used to establish lateral stability of submarine steel pipelines. Therefore, providing an in depth understanding of on-bottom pipeline stability design is necessary to prevent pipeline movement during operation, its associated risks and optimized design.