On the external pressure capacity of deepwater sandwich pipes with inter-layer adhesion conditions

Sandwich pipes (SP), a composite structure consisting of two concentric steel tubes and a polymeric or cement-based core has been proposed to be well-insulated and withstand high installation and operational loads in deepwater oil and gas field. In the paper, the post-buckling responses and pressure capacity of sandwich pipes filled with the solid polypropylene annular were investigated. The degree of the inter-layer adhesion condition between the core layer and the surrounding pipes was modeled by the contact surfaces adopting different maximum shear strength values to allow the relative displacement between the layers. The effects such as inter-layer adhesion interactions, thickness-to-radius ratios, the core thickness, the material parameters, the relative initial ovality directions and the inelastic anisotropy on the collapse pressure of SPs were discussed. More than 2000 finite element (FE) models of the sandwich pipes with practical configurations were constructed and analyzed using the programming language Python within the FE software package ABAQUS. Based on the FE results, a simplified equation was developed and recommended for the collapse pressure calculation of sandwich pipes with the polypropylene annular.