Lateral Buckling Snaked Laying Method for Long Distance Oil and Gas Subsea Pipelines

Long distance subsea pipelines may be subjected to several lateral buckling under temperature and internal pressure loads. Therefore, it is necessary to establish rational control scheme in order to ensure pipeline safety and control project CAPEX. For optimization of snaked lay configuration, the key point is to specify the maximum allowable virtual anchor spacing (VAS) and buckling control pipeline length. Based on the analytical solution, the method of VAS calculation is proposed for preliminary estimation. More accurate results can be obtained by finite element analysis. With the straight pipe and snaked VAS pipe model, the VAS for snaked pipe lay and buckling control pipeline length can be investigated and the optimized snaked lay configuration can be established. The proposed method can be contributed to the optimization of snaked lay for lateral buckling control in subsea pipeline projects.