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| Completed Phase 1 SOW of Konikonna Spool Reroute for bp including design basis, MTO, pipe wall thickness and concrete coating deternation (4/2025, as a consultant to Subsea 7) |
| Simulated buckling behavior of flexible flowline at pipeline crossing and checked the integrity of crossed pipe for bp-Ginger (2/2025, as a consultant to Subsea 7) |
| Assessed fatigue damage of a riser free span from slugging using Orcaflex, and supervised Indian junior engineers on water injection and gas lift risers and subsea pipelines in detailed engineering of Utsira High tie-back project (8/2024, as a consultant to TechnipFMC). |
| Completed riser pull-in and in-place analyses of production riser through J-tube in detailed engineering of Utsira High project (3/2024, as a consultant to TechnipFMC) |
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Seismic Design of Pipelines
Unfortunately, as the tectonic plates of the earth continue to push each other, scientists predict that these earthquakes will get stronger. Earthquakes affect pipelines in a number of ways:
- Ground shaking causes dynamic stresses of pipelines. Seismic wave propagation often causes damage to segmented pipelines with rigid joints, and in a fewer cases damage to steel pipeline with weak welds or high D/t ratios.
- Active fault movements cause high stresses/strains around pipeline crossings. Damage to both segmented and continuous pipelines (including steel pipelines with quality welds) is widely observed.
- Ground shaking sometimes triggers landslides/mudslides that may over-stress a pipeline. In terms of failure mode, for an onshore pipeline often with a high D/t ratio, local buckling is more likely.
For an offshore pipeline, tensile rupture is more likely, in addition to common damage at tie-ins with significant direction and pipe stiffness changes.
- Earthquakes may also cause soil liquefaction to saturated sands that may lift up a gas pipeline or cause permanent ground deformation such as ground settlements and lateral spreading. These subsequent permanent ground deformations often cause more damage to buried pipelines than direct seismic wave propagation.
Liuxon has extensive experience in research and engineering of the following pipelines under earthquakes:
- Municipal pipe networks (water supply, gas supply, etc.);
- Onshore transmission lines for oil and gas;
- Offshore oil and gas pipelines;
- Pipelines for hot or cryogenic fluids.
Liuxon has seismic design experience in most of earthquake-prone zones worldwide. Liuxon has developed design guidelines for pipelines at fault crossings and is a major contributor of the book entitled "Seismic Design of Buried and Offshore Pipelines"(Second Edition).
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