Reeling of Tight Fit Pipe

If it would be possible to install Tight Fit Pipe by means of reeling, it would be an attractive new option for the exploitation of offshore oil and gas fields containing corrosive hydrocarbons. Tight Fit Pipe is mechanically bonded double walled pipe where a corrosion resistant alloy liner pipe is mechanically fitted inside a carbon steel outer pipe through a thermo hydraulic manufacturing process. Reeling is a fast method of offshore pipeline installation where a pipe is spooled on a reel, which is positioned on a vessel. The vessel subsequently sails to the offshore location where the pipe is unwound, straightened and deployed to the seabed. Reeling of Tight Fit Pipe is not yet proven technology, however. The reeling process imposes high plastic strains (due to bending) in the pipe, which may cause unacceptable liner pipe wrinkling and Tight Fit Pipe ovalisation This PhD project aimed to make a contribution to the possible development of the installation of Tight Fit Pipe by means of the reeling method. The focus of the research was on the initiation and the degree of liner pipe wrinkling as well as the degree of ovalisation occurring during the reeling process, both theoretically and experimentally; the latter by performing full scale bending tests on 12.75 inch outer diameter Tight Fit Pipe.

Publications

Focke, E.S. (2007).
Reeling of Tight Fit Pipe, PhD thesis, Delft University of Technology

Focke, E.S., Karjadi, E., Gresnigt, A.M., Meek, J. (2007).
Reeling of Tight Fit Pipe (TFP), Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Artic Engineering

Focke, E.S., Gresnigt, A.M., Meek, J. (2006).
Small Scale Reeling Tests, Proceedings of the 16th ISOPE Conference, pp. 118-126