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Cross-Sectional Layout Analysis of Steel Tube Umbilical

Conference Paper · July 2012

DOI: 10.1115/OMAE2012-83572

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 Proceedings of the ASME 2012 31st International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering
CROSS-SECTIONAL LAYOUT ANALYSIS OF STEEL TUBE UMBILICAL
Qing-zhen Lu
Dalian University of Tech
Dalian, Liaoning, China
Gang Wang
Dalian University
Dalian, Liaoning, China
ABSTRACT
The paper presents four different layouts of a subsea
steel tube umbilical which is composed of six steel tubes,
three electrical cables and one optical fiber cable. When
the umbilical is loaded, there will be a relatively large
stress and deformation when the cross-sectional layout is
unreasonable. So the principles of the cross-sectional
layout of the umbilical are studied considering the stress
and deformation of components. The contact stress
between components, stress and deformation of
components are analyzed and compared based on finite
element method. The preferable design of cross-sectional
layout for this umbilical is present.
1. INTRODUCTION
Umbilical is one of the important equipments of
subsea production system for offshore oil exploitation. It
supplies a link between top floating and subsea
equipments or links between subsea equipments.
Umbilical provides electrical power supply, data
acquisition, hydraulic supply and chemical injection. Steel
tube umbilical is usually used in deep water due to high
external pressure. A typical steel tube umbilical is shown
in Figure 1. It consists of steel tubes, power cables,
optical fiber cables and fillers which are assembled into a
bundle. Steel armour wires are added to achieve the
necessary stability [1]. The sheaths provide protection of
the inner components. According to the specification of
ISO13628-5, the cross-sectional layout of umbilical
components should follow the principle of symmetric and
compaction [1]. At the same time, umbilical will be
subjected to large tensions and cycle bending loads
during operation due to self-weight, ocean environment
and floating movement. Because of the helical structure
of the steel armour wires, they will produce radial
pressure on the inner bundle under the tension loads. For
different type of layouts design, the responses of each
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OMAE2012
July 1-6, 2012, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
OMAE2012-83572
Qian-jin Yue Zhi-xun Yang
Dalian University of Tech Dalian University of Tech
Dalian, Liaoning, China Dalian, Liaoning, China
Jun Yan Yan Qu
Dalian University of Tech Technology Research Dept.
Dalian, Liaoning, China CNOOC Research Institute
Beijing, China
component are different. So except the general principles
in the specification (ISO13628-5), the principle of the
stress and deformation of components under the radial
pressure as small as possible is also needed to be
considered.
z The stress of steel tubes should be as small as
possible. Thus the loads that the umbilical can
sustain could be bigger. The strength of the umbilical
will be larger.
z The contact pressure between components should
be as small as possible. Then the fatigue stress will
be decreased and then the fatigue life will be
increased. The fatigue resistance will be better.
z The deformation of components should be as small
as possible. Thus the radial contraction of the cross-
section will be smaller. Umbilical will have smaller
elongation in case of tension. The performance of
the umbilical under tension will be better.
However, for some complex steel tube umbilical, it is
difficult for engineers to give such a reasonable cross-
sectional layout to obtain the optimal stress, contact
stress and radial contraction. Finite element analysis of
different layout designs is needed and necessary to get
the responses of the components. And then the
preferable design of the layout can be presented.
Fig.1 Composition of a typical umbilical
1 Copyright © 2012 by ASME
 The analysis of cross-section for umbilicals has got (named layout 4). The four kinds of layouts are shown in
lots of attentions. Knapp [2] developed a 2D cable cross- Figure 2. Steel tubes are made of Super Duplex stainless
section analysis software named Cable CAD based on steel with HDPE (high density polyethylene) coating. The
macro-element. Elements have nodal degrees of freedom inner diameter of steel tube is 12.7 mm and the wall
at all points of the inner and outer surfaces that contact thickness of tubes is 1mm. The coating thickness is
adjacent components. Based of Loves curved beam, 9.5mm in the first layer and 1mm in the second layer.
Savik [3] established the finite element method through Electrical cable with 16.7mm outer diameter consists of
kinematic description and linear interpolation application. four copper conductors and HDPE sheath. The optical
Some researchers and companies also used commercial fibers are placed in a small steel tube, and protected by
finite element software for numerical analysis of umbilical 20 steel wires. The outer diameter of the fiber optical
cables. DUCO Company [4] used ABAQUS software to cable is also 16.7mm.
carry out a full 3D explicit analysis of umbilical cable . The
calculation efficiency is relatively low due to the quantities
of contacts. Most of the research mentioned above
focused on analysis of a given cross-section. There is
little research on design and analysis of cross-sectional
layout.
The paper presents four different layout designs of
an umbilical which is composed of six steel tubes, three
electric cables and one optical fiber cable. Parameterized
models based on APDL language of software ANSYS Layout 1: Electrical cables-center Layout 2: Steel tube-center
were established efficiently. Contact stress between
components, stress and deformation of components are
analyzed and compared effectively based on the finite
element method and the plane strain assumption. The
preferable design of layout for this umbilical is present.

2. FINITE ELEMENT MODEL OF UMBILICAL

Based on the APDL language of software ANSYS,
parametric models of cross-sections can be established
easily. Umbilical is a structure which is composed of
multiple elements and multiple materials. The reasonable
simplify of geometry models are necessary. There are
many helical steel wires in the optical fiber cable. The
section can be simplified as a plane of steel and polymer
sheath. So steel tube and optical cable are made of steel
and polymer. Electrical cable is made of copper and
polymer. Filler and outer sheath are made of polymer.
The filler and sheath components are modeled by plane
elements of PLANE183 formulation with the defined
material properties. Contact elements with CONTACT172
formulation were used to simulate the interaction.
Surface-to-surface contacts are set between components
in the FE model.
Layout 3:Three tubes-center Layout 4: Fillers-center
Fig.2 Four kinds of designed layouts
2.2 MATERIAL PROPERTIES
All steel tubes are made from Super Duplex steel and
coated with HDPE. Electrical cables are simplified into
copper section and filled by HDPE. Fiber optical cables
consist of steel armour wires and HDPE sheath, the fillers
among components and the outer sheath are made from
HDPE material. The material properties of components
are shown in Table1 [5].
Table 1 Material property of the components

2.1 CROSS-SECTIONAL LAYOUT SOLUTIONS OF AN

UMBILICAL
The paper focuses on one steel tube umbilical with
steel armour wires for deep-water production which is
used in Chinese South Sea. Its functional components
consist of six steel tubes, three electrical cables and one
optical fiber cable. Based on the general principles of
symmetry and compaction, there are four primary designs
of layout of the cross-section: electrical cables-center
(named layout 1), steel tube-center (named layout 2),
three tubes-center (named layout 3) and fillers-center
2.3 MESH
The cross-sectional analysis is assumed to plane
strain problem. The high order element PLANE183 with
better accuracy and efficiency is selected. Definition of
the mesh is an important step in the FEA as the element
size has a direct effect on the analysis results. So
assurance of mesh quality and displacement compatibility

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 is very necessary for avoiding long and narrow elements.
The average size of elements in the research is about
1mm. When the fineness of mesh is increased to 1.2
times, the variety of analysis results is only near 5
percent. So the element size of 1mm is confirmed and
element numbers of the four different sections are 6610,
5621, 6670, and 5920 respectively.

2.4 INTERACTIONS AND BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

The interaction between components must be set in
the finite element model because of contact between
components. The possible contacts include: tube sheath-
tube sheath, tube sheath-electric cable sheath, tube
sheath-optical cable sheath, fillers-outer sheath, filler-
filler, fillers-electric cable sheath, fillers-optical cable
sheath, electric cable sheath-outer sheath and optical
cable sheath-outer sheath. All the contacts belong to
face-face contact between flexible bodies. The selection Fig.3 Cross-section loaded with radial pressure
of target faces and contact faces can influence the
accuracy of result because of the difference of 3.1 COMPARISON OF STRESS OF STEEL TUBE
penetration quality. Contact elements with CONTACT172 COMPONENT
formulation were used to simulate the interaction. Stress is one of the important quantified indexes. Steel
tube is the mainly load-carrying component. It must be
3 ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON OF UMBILICAL under the yield stress when subject to loads. When the
LAYOUTS stress of steel tubes is smaller, the load that the umbilical
can sustain will be bigger.
Umbilical will be subjected to large tensions and Under radial loads, the maximum stress of the steel
cycle bending loads during operation due to self-weight, tube is at the point of inner face which has the greatest
ocean environment and floating movement. Because of change in curvature of the steel tube at the margin as
the helical structure of the steel armour wires, they will shown in Figure 4. The maximum stresses of the four
produce radial pressure on the inner bundle. For different kinds of layouts are respectively 364Mpa, 370Mpa,
type of layouts design, the responses of each component 436Mpa, 390Mpa. The maximum stress of steel tube of
are different. The smaller deformation, stress and contact layout 1 and layout 2 are obviously less than those of
stress is, the better the layout design is. So the numerical layout 3 and layout 4. Layout 3 has the biggest stress.
test of the cross-section under a given pressure is Three tubes in the center layer will lead to biggest stress.
presented in this paper. These four kinds of cross-
sectional layouts are loaded with an outer radial pressure
lof 5.5Mpa as shown in Figure 3. Then the structural
responses such as stress and deformation will be
analyzed. According to results, quantizing indexes (stress
and deformation) can be compared and a preferable of
the design can be given.

Fig.4 Component stress of steel tube

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 3.2 COMPARISON OF CONTACT STRESS BETWEEN
COMPONENTS
Contact stress between components is one of the
major factors influencing on fatigue life of umbilicals. It
influences the friction stress directly. The smaller contact
stress is, the smaller friction stress is. And then the
fatigue life will be increased. Contact stress between
contacted components is shown in Figure 5. The specific
values of contact points are extracted and compared
among the four different layout types. The point of the
biggest contact stress is at the contact between steel tube
in the second layer and center components. Layouts 3
and 4 have higher contact stress than the other two
layouts. The biggest contact stress of layouts 3 and 4 are
29.3Mpa and 26.5 Mpa. And the layout 1 and 2 are only
near 20Mpa. There are seven points in layout 3 and six
points in layout 4, of which are above 20Mpa. The
average values of the contact stress of all the contact
points are 14.6Mpa, 13.1Mpa, 15.8Mpa, 16.9 Mpa,
respectively.
Fig 5 Contact stress between components
3.3 COMPARISON OF DEFORMATION OF CROSS-
SECTION
The magnitude and uniformity of the deformation of
the cross-section are important quantified indexes for the
evaluation of the layout designs. The smaller the
deformation of components is, the smaller the radial
constriction of the cross-section is.
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In order to make detailed comparison about radial
displacements of the four layouts, the nodal point value
on the sheath which near the meeting point of the circle
center and components center is choosen as the value of
the radial deformation. The method of selecting sampling
points has the advantage of real radial displacement of
the cross-section. Radial displacements of the nodal
points are drawn in Figure 6. The comparison can be
displayed clearly. The average displacements of the nodal
points in the outer layer are 0.000036mm, 0.000034mm,
0.000045mm, 0.000038 mm of the four layouts. Radial
deformations of components in the second layer are
shown in Figure 7. The deformation of most components
in the layout 2 and layout 4 are less than 0.4mm. There is
only one component, the deformation of which was more
than 0.4mm. But there are three components in layout 1
and layout 3, the deformation of which was more than
0.4mm.
Fig.6 Radial displacement of the choosed nodal point
F i g . 7 R a d i a l d i s p l a c e m e n t d i s t r i b u t i o n o f l a y o u ts
According to the above comparisons of the cross-
sectional radial displacement, it is not difficult to find the
radial displacement of layout 2 is less than those of other
layouts.
 3.4 LAYOUT DESIGN RESULT BASED ON ANALYSIS
The quantified indexes (stress of steel tube, contact
stress between components and deformation of cross-
section) are compared based on the analysis results as
shown in Figure 7. Compared with layout 1 and layout 2,
layout 3 of three tubes in the center has a very high
stress, contact stress and deformation. Because the
components in the inner center are too rigid and the
components in the second layer are relatively softer.
The layout 4 of the filler in the center also has a very high
contact stress because the components in the center are
too soft. Layout 1 and Layout 2 have much lower stress
and deformation compared to the other layouts.
Fig.7 Results of four layouts
The mechanical performance of each component of
the steel tube umbilical is different. Steel tube is the
relatively rigid component compared to components of
electrical cable and optical fiber cable. The filler
component is the softest in these components. From the
analysis result we can find:
(1) When the components in the center are
too rigid or too softer, there will produce a
bigger stress and deformation, such as
the cross-sectional layout 3 and layout 4.
(2) When the components in the outer layer
have softer components, there will be a
bigger deformation in the cross-section,
such as the layout 3.
(3) When there are three electric cables in
the center, it has the smallest stress of
steel tube. But when there is a steel tube
in the center, it has the smallest contact
stress and deformation.
So Layout 2 is the most preferable design for the
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stats
umbilical cross-sectional layout.
4 CONCLUSIONS
For various layout types of multi components, this
paper presents three mechanical design principles which
can be quantified analyzed by numerical method.
Different layouts can be analyzed and compared by finite
element analysis. And then the preferable design for the
umbilical cross-sectional layout can be got.
A practical layout of a steel tube umbilical which
consists of six steel tubes, three electrical cables and one
fiber optical cable was designed based on the layout
analysis. Layout 2 has relatively smaller stress and
deformation. So Layout 2 is the preferable design for this
umbilical cross-sectional layout.
It provides a design method of layout based on FEA
method for complex cross-section. And it has well
prospects for future engineering application.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The financial support for this research was provided
by the 863 Program of 2009AA09Z301-2, the China
Postdoctoral Science Foundation (20110491521),
Program (10902018) of NSFC, the Colony Fund of
Innovative Research (50921001). These supports are
gratefully appreciated.
REFERENCES
[1] ISO13628-5 “Petroleum and natural gas industries-
Design and operation of subsea production systems-
Part5 Subsea umbilicals”,2002
[2] T. T. Le and R. H. Knapp, "A Finite Element Model for
Cables with Nonsymmetrical Geometry and Loads",
ASME J. Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering,
Vol. 116, No. 1, pp. 14-20, 1994.
[3] Svein Savik, Knut I. Ekeberg, "Non-linear Stress
Analysis of Complex Umbilical Cross-
sections",OMAE,2002,28126
[4] Ian Probyn, Alan Dobson, Michael Martinez.
Advances in 3-D FEA Techniques for Metallic Tube
Umbilicals.ISOPE,2007
[5] Wang shouxin, Engineering mechanics, Chemical
industy publishing company. pp. 60
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