Original Article

Journal of Reinforced Plastics

and Composites

A review of the design and analysis 0(0) 1–17

! The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0731684417713666
offshore applications journals.sagepub.com/home/jrp

Kuang Yu1, Evgeny V Morozov1, Muhammad A Ashraf1,2 and

Krishna Shankar1

Abstract
The development and recent applications of reinforced thermoplastic pipes for offshore oil and gas applications are
reviewed. The design and materials of reinforced thermoplastic pipes are presented. Reinforced thermoplastic pipes have
been increasingly accepted as an important alternative to traditional metallic offshore pipes due to their distinct advan-
tages such as a higher stiffness to weight ratio, improved fatigue resistance and better corrosion resistance. Their
potential applications can be extended to deep-water risers. Loading conditions which could be experienced by them
for offshore applications are described. Existent studies and analyses of offshore pipes under these loading conditions are
discussed. Based on this discussion, this article outlines the limitations of the current studies of reinforced thermoplastic
pipes and future work to improve the analysis and design of reinforced thermoplastic pipes is recommended.

Keywords
Reinforced thermoplastic pipes, spoolable pipes, composite materials, offshore oil and gas applications, design and
analysis, offshore composites

polymer (FRP) pipes, which were handmade filament-

Introduction wound pipes consisting of glass fibres and resin,
With the rapid development of industries and technol- appeared after World War II while the development
ogy, the world’s energy consumption has substantially of commercial FRP pipes began in the mid-1950s and
increased. In 2008, it grew to approximately 3.5  1011 has since rapidly increased.3 Presently, applications of
GJ with more than 70% of the total supplied by fuel FRP pipes can be found in many fields, such as civil
from the oil and gas industry.1 As an increasing number engineering, aerospace industries and onshore and off-
of offshore hydrocarbon reserves has been found, off- shore crude oil and gas transportation. In the past,
shore oil and gas production will play a significant role metallic pipes have been dominant in the offshore oil
in the world’s future energy supply. However, the trans- and gas industry because the unit price of their material
portation of hydrocarbon products is an important (i.e. steel) has been much cheaper than that of a
issue. Generally, offshore pipelines have been con-
sidered one of the most economical means of large-
scale oil and gas transportation as they are commonly 1
School of Engineering and Information Technology, The University of
believed to be more energy efficient than other means of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Australia
transportation. 2
Aeronautical Engineering Department, Military Technological College,
Offshore pipelines first appeared in the 17th century Oman
when humans began to search for oil in offshore
regions. Not surprisingly, metallic pipes have a long Corresponding author:
Evgeny V Morozov, University of New South Wales, SEIT, UNSW at
history of being used as offshore pipelines as their first ADFA, Northcott Drive, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2600,
well-known application can be tracked back to the third Australia.
century in ancient Greece.2 The first fibre-reinforced Email: e.morozov@adfa.edu.au
2 Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

composite material. However, over the past few decades, Although rigid FRP pipes have been used in offshore
due to the high maintenance cost resulting from the cor- applications for a long time, in recent years, there has
rosion of ageing metallic pipes and the reduction in the been increasing interest in flexible FRP ones as they
unit price of a composite material, the costs of using FRP enable faster and more cost-effective installation meth-
pipes or metallic pipes in offshore applications are com- ods. Usually, large amounts of metallic material are
parable. Also, as FRP pipes have advantages over metal- used in designs of flexible FRP pipes (i.e. Carcass and
lic ones (i.e. those made from high-grade steel or Armours) with complex unbounded wall structures.
corrosion-resistant alloys), including a higher stiffness Therefore, they are normally made-to-order by a few
to weight ratio, improved fatigue resistance and better manufacturers, such as NKT Flexibles, Technip and
corrosion resistance, they are becoming increasingly sig- Wellstream.25–27 This kind of flexible FRP pipe is
nificant in the offshore oil and gas industry. Generally, used mainly in deep-water (3000 m) where it has to
an FRP pipe can provide reliable long-term service at a undergo harsh challenges, such as a high external pres-
relatively low cost during its design life as it has better sure, low temperature and contact with the subsea.
corrosion resistance to most chemical reactions caused A reinforced thermoplastic pipe (RTP) is a relatively
by oil, gas and salt water than a steel one. Depending new type of spoolable composite pipe. As it does not
on their offshore applications, FRP pipes deliver add- require any complicated wall structure or thermoset
itional benefits; for instance, they are much lighter resins, its construction cost is less than those of other
than steel pipes, which contributes to substantial reduc- pipes while it provides an excellent combination of
tions in the operational costs of existing platforms due to strength, corrosion resistance, flexibility and rugged-
their low tension requirement and improved capacity to ness.28 It was originally developed for onshore applica-
extract oil and gas from greater depths.4–6 Additionally, tions such as oil gathering flow-lines and water
FRP composites can be tailored to achieve weight and injection lines; for instance, the Sovereign pipe (for-
flexibility optimisation for risers and flexible pipes. mally HalliflowTM) is an early commercial RTP devel-
Recently, an increasing number of engineering projects oped by Wellstream,29 which has been used as an
involving FRP pipes for offshore applications has been innovative pipeline technology for onshore infield
undertaken globally, such as in the Gulf of Mexico, flow-lines since 1989. Because of their good results in
North Sea, Southeast Asia and Africa. onshore applications, RTPs are now being increasingly
Based on structural considerations, offshore pipe- accepted as alternative pipelines in offshore projects. In
lines can be broadly divided into two categories: risers recent years, more than 500 km of RTPs have been
(drilling and production risers) and generic tubulars installed in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and
(flow-lines, jumpers and umbilicals, and choke and kill interest in extending their use is still increasing in the oil
lines). As early as 1973, Ahlstone7 patented a rigid FRP and gas industry. Important manufacturers producing
drilling riser consisting of glass fibres coated with epoxy. commercial RTPs include Airborne, Pipelife, Technip,
Since then, great progress has been made in the devel- Coflexlite and Cosmoplast. More companies will
opment of rigid FRP pipes8–12 and their end connec- become involved in the global RTP market in future
tions.13–18 The differences among patented designs of due to the commercial, operational and environmental
rigid FRP pipes include their selections of the fibre benefits provided by RTPs.
reinforcements and materials for the liner and cover. An RTP has several advantages over a conventional
Flexible FRP pipes have also attracted considerable steel pipe, such as better corrosion and fatigue resist-
attention because of their installation times and costs ance, a higher stiffness to weight ratio and lower main-
being less than those of rigid pipes for offshore applica- tenance cost. Therefore, in spite of their more expensive
tions. In 1971, Goldsworthy and Hardesty19 presented a basic materials, the overall costs of using RTPs in off-
method and apparatus for manufacturing continuous- shore applications are much less than those of using
length filament FRP pipes. Carter20 described an appar- steel ones considering the necessity to replace ageing
atus which could be used to produce longitudinally rein- steel pipes. A comparison of the costs over the whole
forcing continuously generated plastic pipes. Sas- design lives of a carbon steel pipe and RTP is given in
Jaworsky and Williams21,22 patented a design for spool- Table 1.
able FRP pipes and their end connections. Song and Another important benefit offered by an RTP is its
Estep23 created designs for a spoolable composite spoolability, which enables it to be manufactured
coiled tubing connector including two types of housing, onshore, packed on a road-transportable reel in a
which could be joined together to connect the coiled long continuous form and transported to the site of
tubes. Quigley et al.24 filed patents for a composite the pipeline, with installation achieved by the reel-lay
spoolable tube with a complicated wall structure con- method, whereby it is continuously unwound from the
sisting of an inner liner, interface layer, fibre composite reel and laid on the seabed. This method leads to a
layers, a pressure barrier and outer protective layer. lower labour cost during the installation phase because
Yu et al. 3

Table 1. Comparison of costs of RTP and carbon steel pipe.29

Description Carbon steel pipe RTP (Halliflow-A350)

External diameter (cm) 2.06 3.48

Price per metre (US dollars) 72.83 111.55
Total cost (US dollars) 8,436,000 1,292,000
Design life (years) 5 20
Cost of field life every 5 years (US dollars) 843,600 1,292,000
Comparison of cost after 5 years 1,687,200 1,292,000
Cost of replacement after 5 years (US dollars) 843,600 0
Comparison of costs after 10 years 2,530,800 1,292,000
Comparison of costs after 20 years 5,061,600 1,292,000
Length of pipe ¼ 11,500 m.

most of the welding, coating and testing are accom-

plished onshore.30 It is also the fastest installation
method compared with other conventional ones, such Fibre reinforced layers
as the S-lay and J-lay. In addition, the RTP’s light
weight and easy installation contribute to other savings 54.7°
such as in barge rental rates, one of the most significant
cost factors in offshore pipeline installation. 54.7°
Consequently, the reel-lay method provides consider- Liner
able cost and scheduling advantages, including low
installation costs, and ease of storage and handling.
The high efficiency of RTP installation also has the Cover
additional benefit that, as it does not require any
heavy equipment, it has little environmental impact. Figure 1. Typical structure of RTP.
During the past several years, RTPs have been used
in offshore applications in relatively shallow water,
mainly as water injection pipes and oil flow-lines. One
of their important future applications is their use as 5L for a line pipe,33 API specification 15HR for a
gathering pipelines for relatively small offshore satellite high-pressure FRP pipe,34 offshore standard DNV-
gas fields where it is usually not commercially feasible OS-F101 for a submarine pipeline system35 and off-
to install a platform with gas treatment facilities.31 shore standard DNV-OS-C501 for composite
Also, they could be used as risers considering their components.36
light weight and good spoolability, as well as interven- The typical structure of an RTP consists of an inner
tion and landing/export lines. thermoplastic liner, several structural reinforcing layers
made from fibre-reinforced thermoplastic composites
and an outer thermoplastic cover, as shown in Figure 1.
Design and materials of RTPs
Currently, designs and qualifications of RTPs are gov-
Liner and cover
erned mainly by industry standards and specifications.
One of the most important industry standards is API The liner and cover are designed to contain the internal
RP 15S, which is the recommended practice for the transported product and protect the reinforcing layers
qualification of spoolable reinforced plastic line from external corrosion damage, respectively. Various
pipes32 published by the American Petroleum Institute thermoplastics, such as polyethylene (PE), cross-linked
(API). It covers the design, manufacture, qualifications polyethylene (PEX), polyamide (PA) and polyvinylide-
and application of spoolable reinforced plastic line nefluoride (PVDF), can be used to manufacture the
pipes for implementation as flow-lines in oil and gas liner and cover. Pipe-grade PE is widely used to manu-
applications, such as specifying permissible failure facture the liner and cover as it is a commonly adopted
modes, pressure ratings and service factors. Other material in oil and gas production while the use of other
standards and specifications which provide guidance thermoplastics for more specialised fluid services is
for designing RTPs include ANSI/API specification under development.37,38 The properties of some
4 Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

Table 2. Properties of commercially available thermoplastics.39–45

Density Elastic modulus Tensile Elongation to Maximum service

Thermoplastic (kg/m3) (MPa) strength (MPa) failure (%) temperature ( C)

PP 917 1300 35 225 104

LLDPE 922 600 16.1 659 70
LDPE 850 204 20 537 70
MDPE 950 800 23.7 522 70
HDPE 1040 953 22.5 651 70
PA 66 1700 2800 80 50 98.9
PPS 1430 3800 65 16.4 227
PEEK 1400 3600 92 24.4 240
PP: polypropylene; LLDPE: linear low-density polyethylene; LDPE: low-density polyethylene; MDPE: medium-density polyethylene; HDPE: high-density
polyethylene; PA: polyamide; PPS: polyphenylene sulphide; PEEK: polyetheretherketone.

thermoplastics available in the market are given in tungsten wire is higher. Steel wires are the most import-
Table 2.39–45 ant metallic reinforcements and exhibit high and con-
sistent strength. It has been reported that a new type of
plastic-matrix steel composite pipe, a plastic pipe rein-
Reinforcing layer
forced by cross-helically wound steel wires (PSP), has
The structural reinforcing of an RTP consists of several been developed in China for use in several areas,
angle-ply layers made from fibre reinforcements and including petroleum transportation, chemical engineer-
thermoplastic matrix materials with a winding angle ing and municipal water supplies.48
of 54.7 . This winding angle is commonly adopted in
the design of RTPs to fully utilise the strength proper- Glass fibre. Glass fibres are the most widely used
ties of the fibre reinforcements in the reinforcing layers reinforcements in the manufacture of composite mater-
based on the ‘netting analysis’,43 which is often used as ials due to their cheap prices. Also, they have good
an effective tool in the design of composite pressure temperature and chemical resistance, low moisture
vessels. However, it should be noted that this analysis absorption and high tensile strength. Generally, there
is only valid when the resultant hoop to axial stress are several types of glass fibres: A-glass (A for ‘alkali’),
ratio is 2:1 but gives no indication of the strength of E-glass (E for ‘electrical’), C-glass (C for ‘chemical’), D-
the pipe if the ratio of applied stresses varies, which can glass and S-glass. A-glass is the original type of glass
be caused by even small changes in operational condi- fibre, which has been almost completely replaced by
tions.46 Obviously, the winding angles that result in the other types, with E-glass the most popular because of
best performances of composite pipes under other load- its excellent properties and relatively low cost. As S-
ing cases could be different from 54.7 . Also, apart glass fibres are designed to possess a high strength
from structures with single winding angles of , it and modulus to meet the requirements of very technical
has been reported that angle-ply reinforcement layer applications, such as in the aerospace and military
systems with two different angles of the reinforcement industries, they are more expensive than E-glass.
orientation ½=  ’ can also be successfully employed Other types of glass fibres have been developed to
in composite pipes due to the balanced nature of this meet specific demands; for instance, C-glass fibres are
type of composite structure and could improve the axial employed mainly for surface tissue due to their good
load-bearing capacity of a pipe.47 chemical resistance.

Reinforcement materials. The reinforcements in the rein- Carbon fibre. Carbon fibres are generally considered
forcing layers, which are the principal load-bearing to be high-performance reinforcements with high
components of an RTP, can be constructed using strength and modulus but are expensive. They are pro-
either high-strength fibres (e.g. glass, carbon or duced mainly from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) heat-trea-
aramid) or metallic materials (e.g. steel wires or ted at temperatures ranging from 1000 to 3000 C,
tapes). The latter can also be classified into whiskers, which control their tensile strength and elastic modulus,
metal wools (e.g. steel wool) and metal filament-length according to which they can be roughly divided into
fibres, with metals such as beryllium, steel and tungsten high-strength (HS) and high-modulus (HM) carbon
commonly used. A beryllium reinforcement has a low fibres (e.g. AS4 and P75, respectively). Apart from
density and high modulus while the density of a their high strength and modulus, these fibres also
Yu et al. 5

improve the fatigue characteristics of FRP composites Table 3. Properties of different types of fibres.
as they can reduce the strain in the polymer matrix
Tensile Elastic Elongation
material for a given load.49 In addition, their low coef-
Density strength modulus to failure
ficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and high corrosion Fibre (kg/m3) (MPa) (GPa) (%)
resistance enhance their attraction as reinforcements
for FRP composites.50 Therefore, even though applica- Steel wires48 – 1832 21053 5
tions of carbon fibre-reinforced composites (i.e. AS4- E-glass54 2541 3450 72.4 1.8–3.2
carbon fibre-PEEK) are currently limited mainly to the C-glass54 2492 3160 68.9 4.8
aerospace industry, they are increasingly being S-glass54 2492 4590 85.5 5.7
employed in offshore applications, especially those in AS455 1750 3590 235.0 –
deep water, as they can maintain their mechanical P7556 2160 1900 517.0 –
properties in seawater and provide additional cost sav- Twaron52 420–3360 – 60–80 3.0–4.4
ings in terms of weight in comparison with steel.6
However, the impact resistance of composites rein-
forced by carbon fibres is not as good as that of glass
fibre-reinforced composites. fibre-reinforced polyester pipes show fluid weepage at
about 20% of their burst pressure due to the transverse
Aramid fibre. Aramid is the generic name for a cracking of the matrix materials.59 This brittle failure
family of organic fibres with low density and high ten- mode is commonly observed in fibre-reinforced thermo-
sile strength. These fibres are usually produced as fila- setting composites, which prevents the strength proper-
ment yarns, rovings or chopped fibres, all of which have ties of the fibre reinforcements being fully utilized.60 In
a characteristic bright golden-yellow colour. They are contrast to fibre-RTPs, glass fibre-reinforced PE pipes
commonly used in the military industry, especially in can remain fluid tight up until the time of failure of the
anti-ballistic applications, due to their light weight, and reinforcements.61 Also, in contrast to the linear stress–
high impact and abrasion resistance; for instance, strain relationships of thermoset plastics, PE has shown
KevlarTM is the trade name of aramid fibres manufac- highly nonlinear responses to loading which creates dif-
tured by DuPont, which was originally a gunpowder ficulties in accurately modelling its mechanical behav-
producer and famous for military helmets and body iours. The stress–strain curves of PE are shown in
armours.51 Nevertheless, applications of aramid fibres Figure 3.
are no longer restricted to the military industry as they The mechanical properties of thermoset plastics and
are now widely used as reinforcements in RTPs for off- thermoplastics during heating are also different.
shore oil and gas applications. TwaronTM is the brand Thermoset plastics can retain their shape over a wide
name of Teijin Aramid, which is developing light- range of temperatures as their microstructure consists
weight, flexible Twaron-RTPs to overcome many of of an irreversible molecular chain. However, high tem-
the issues which affect existing steel-based pipe peratures soften thermoplastics, which harden again
systems.52 when cooled, a property that is important as it enables
thermoplastic pipes to be repaired.64 Also, the elastic
Summary of fibre properties. Other fibres which modulus of PE changes substantially with temperature.
could be used as reinforcements in FRP composites Alawaji65 conducted full-scale experiments to investi-
include boron, ceramic, silica and ultra-high molecular gate the effects of temperature on HDPE pipes.
weight PE (UHMW-PE). The mechanical properties of According to the results, the elastic modulus of a pipe
different types of fibres are given in Table 3.48,52–56 is reduced by 62% when the temperature is raised from
30 to 70 C, an almost linear decrease. Bilgin et al.66
Matrix materials. Two main classes of resins are usually presented robust equations for calculating the elastic
used as matrix materials in FRP composites: thermoset moduli of PEs (HDPE and MDPE) at different tem-
plastics and thermoplastics. The stress–strain relation- peratures, which follow the basic trends of the data
ships of most thermoset plastics, such as polyester, reported in the literature and experiments. They also
vinylester and epoxy, are almost linear in the elastic found that the temperature has negligible effects on
range, as shown in Figure 2. Thus, their mechanical PE’s Poisson’s ratio and CTE.
behaviours can be successfully described by the classic The strength and failure mechanism of PE have been
laminate theory.57,58 Due to their attractive properties, well documented.67,68 According to API 17J,69 the max-
such as high chemical resistance, low processing tem- imum allowable strain for PE in static applications is
peratures and good fibre impregnation, thermoset plas- 7.7% while a more conservative value of 5.5% is
tics are commonly used matrix materials in FRP applied for the design of an RTP, which can be con-
composites. However, it has been reported that glass sidered the strain limits of its liner and cover.70
6 Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

Figure 2. Stress–strain curves of polyester and epoxy resin.62,63

Figure 3. Stress–strain curves of MDPE (PC2040) subjected to uniaxial loading.61

Yu et al. 7

Unfortunately, very little information on the strength consists of a PE liner, E-glass fibres with a PE matrix
characteristics of fibre-reinforced PE composites is and PE coating, which are all melt-fused to compound
openly available. Benjamin71 tested the properties of into a solid wall.74 They are able to sustain a working
MDPE (PC2040) and fibre-reinforced MDPE compos- pressure of up to 34.5 MPa at 65 C, maximum external
ites (DeLama DL/3 tape), with the results shown in pressure of up to 16.3 MPa at room temperature, max-
Table 4. imum water depths for installation of up to 1629 m and
have inside diameters ranging from 51 to 127 mm.75
Current commercial RTP products for offshore
Coflexip RTP. CoflexipÕ is the offshore branch of
applications Technip-Coflexip, which has over 25 years of experi-
At present, most commercial RTPs for offshore oil and ence in manufacturing continuous flexible steel pipes
gas applications are manufactured using pipe-grade for offshore oil and gas applications. They have devel-
HDPE (PE 80 or PE 100) and aramid fibre oped a lightweight CoflexliteÕ RTP, which has inner
reinforcements. and outer sheaths made from HDPE and middle
layers consisting of double cross-wound aramid fibre
Pipelife RTP. SoluForce Õ is the brand name of Pipelife’s tapes that provide a high pressure rating. Also, in col-
RTPs, the structures of which consist of PE 100 (inner laboration with Technip, CosmoplastÕ produces RTPs
liner), aramid fibre yarns (Kevlar 29 or Twaron 1000 for offshore oil and gas applications, which can be sup-
reinforcement layers) and PE 100 (outer cover).72 plied in coils with lengths of up to 500 m and enable
Pipelife provides a wide range of RTPs (SoluForce easy and fast installation.76 The technical specifications
Light to SoluForce Heavy), which have short-term of CoflexliteÕ RTPs are given in Table 5.
burst pressures (STBPs) ranging from 11.5 to
45.0 MPa and a maximum ambient fluid temperature Loading conditions of RTPs for offshore
of 65 C.73
applications
Airborne RTP. The structures of RTPs manufactured by The selection of loading conditions is of fundamental
AirborneÕ use the one-material concept, that is, a pipe significance for the design of offshore pipes since under-
estimating certain parameters (e.g. the thickness of the
pipe wall) could lead to failure of the pipe and have
Table 4. Properties of MDPE and fibre-reinforced MDPE catastrophic consequences in terms of the environment,
composites. economy and geopolitics. On the other hand, since
pipes in offshore applications are usually very long,
MDPE DeLama
slightly overestimating some of their parameters (e.g.
(PC2040) DL/3 tape
the minimum allowable bend radius) will lead to sub-
Initial tensile modulus (MPa) 716.0 – stantial extra manufacturing and transportation costs.
Ultimate tensile strength (MPa) 17.5 – The loads acting on offshore pipes can be classified into
Transverse modulus (MPa) – 691.0 the two main categories summarised in Table 6,64 in
Transverse strength (MPa) – 15.2 which it is clear that those involved in the installation
phase are static while both static and dynamic loading

Table 5. Data sheet of CoflexliteÕ RTPs.77

Nominal diameter 300 400 500 600

Internal diameter mm 74 101 127 152

External diameter mm 102 135 162 191
Design pressure at 60 C Bar 55 43 37 32
Burst pressure at 20 C Bar 284 218 189 165
Burst pressure at 60 C Bar 210 161 140 122
Minimum bending radius at 20 C m 0.7 0.9 1.1 1.2
Weight in air empty Kg/m 3.7 5.8 7.5 9.6
Thermal exchange coeff. at 20 C W/m.K 4.6 5.7 6.7 7.5
Maximum length on one reel m 1800 1000 500 250
8 Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

Table 6. Classification of loads experienced by offshore pipes.64 hydrostatic resistance. However, obviously, their
research did not cover all loads which could occur in
Loading types
the installation phase. Therefore, a wider range of load-
Installation phase Bending ing cases should be considered in the design and ana-
Axial tension lysis of RTPs for offshore applications.
External pressure
Combination of bending and axial Analysis of offshore pipes under
tension
Combination of external pressure and different loads
axial tension Research on offshore pipes subjected to different loads
Combination of bending, external and combinations of them is active. Previous studies of
pressure and axial tension
the mechanical behaviours of offshore pipes under vari-
Torsion
Combination of torsion, bending, axial
ous loads, including most installation and important
tension and external pressure operational ones, are reviewed in the following
Operational phase Constant internal fluid pressure subsections.
Fluctuating internal fluid pressure
Hydrodynamic forces due to internal Offshore pipes under internal pressure
axial and external cross-flows
Impact pressure due to fluid hammer The load-bearing capacity of pipes under internal
Thermal stresses due to temperature pressure, usually referred to as the pressure capacity,
gradients is a primary concern for designing offshore pipes.
Uniform elevated temperature effects Overestimating this capacity could lead to cata-
Moisture strain effects strophic failures of a pipe while underestimating the
External pressure due to pipe-soil amount of product that could be transported, thereby
interaction
lowering production and causing extra cost. The pres-
Bending due to differential settlement
of soil
sure capacity of a metallic pipe is well-documented in
Local impact by foreign objects some industrial standards82–84 and is determined
mainly by its wall thickness and the yield strength of
its material as:85
conditions can occur in the operational phase. For a
failure caused by dynamic loads, fatigue damage accu- Pd D
tNOM ¼ þ ta ð1Þ
mulation rules should be used in order to ensure the 2Ew y Ft
safety and sustainability of an offshore pipe for the
term of its design life. Also, deformation or possible where tNOM is the nominal pipe wall thickness, Pd the
rupture caused by creep should be considered for design internal pressure determined as the difference
long-term loading histories. Many damage mechanics between the internal pressure and external pressure
theories concerning the fatigue and creep of materials caused by the environment, D, ta and y the nominal
can be used as effective tools for design purposes.78,79 external diameter, thickness allowance for corrosion
However, it should be noted that operational loads and specified minimum yield strength, respectively.
are usually less critical than installation loads for off- Due to the anisotropy of a composite material, it is
shore pipes.64 Installation loads normally depend on more difficult to predict the pressure capacity of a com-
the installation method used, the failures caused by posite pipe. As described above, the ‘netting analysis’ is
which are also more complex and should be investi- primarily used to design cylindrical pressure vessels and
gated using different theories and methods. As some shows that winding angles of  54.7 are the optimum
installation loads (i.e. axial tension) result in substantial ones for closed-end composite pipes based on the
plane stresses in the wall of a pipe, the failure in every assumption that only fibres carry loads.43 Meiras86 con-
lamina should be examined against a proper failure cri- ducted a series of experiments using filament-wound
terion, such as the maximum stress criterion, maximum pipes with polyester and epoxy resin to demonstrate
strain criterion or Tsai–Wu or Tsai–Hill criteria. Other the effect of their matrix materials on their pressure
installation loads, such as external pressure, bending, capacity. He reported a knee in the axial stress/strain
torsion and their combinations, tend to lead to buck- curve when a pipe is subjected to internal pressure and
ling of the whole pipe.80 weepage, which he attributed to resin failure before
For the installation of an RTP, Bai and Bai81 studied fibre breakage. Hull et al.59 investigated failures of
some properties relating to it, including its axial load- glass/polyester filament-wound pipes with winding
ing, bending loading and crushing capacities, and angles of 54.44 using closed-end and unrestrained-
Yu et al. 9

end internal pressure tests, with the experimental results closed-end RTP due to its geometry, which results in
agreeing well with most of the conclusions reported by too much stiffness being applied in the axial direction
Meiras.86 Weepage resulting from transverse cracking and too little in the hoop direction when employing
of the resin and resin/matrix interface occurs at about winding angles of  54.7 . Bai et al.94 studied the
20% of its burst pressure due to fractures of the fibres. burst capacity of an RTP consisting of HDPE and a
This observation was confirmed by Jones and Hull87 combination of aramid fibre reinforcements and HDPE
who used standard microscopic technologies to exam- matrix materials under internal pressure through
ine failure mechanisms in filament-wound pipes. Then, experimental, numerical and theoretical approaches.
Spencer and Hull88 studied the influence of winding The values of the STBPs predicted by the numerical
angles of  35 ,  45 ,  65 and  75 , on the failures simulations and theoretical calculations are shown to
of filament-wound pipes under internal pressure. It was be 19.6% and 16.5% larger than the experimental
shown that the micro-mechanisms associated with results, respectively. This is caused by not considering
deformation, weepage and fracture depend strongly the nonlinear mechanical behaviour of PE in either the
on the winding angles under both closed-end and numerical simulation or theoretical calculation. Then,
unrestrained-end boundary conditions. Rosenow89 Bai et al.95 investigated the mechanical behaviour of an
extended Spencer and Hull’s study88 to six different RTP, the material and structure of which are similar to
winding angles varying from  15 to  85 using both those of the RTP presented in Bai et al.,94 under inter-
the classic laminate theory and an experimental nal pressure using a FE model, an analytical solution
approach, which showed that the optimum winding and experiments. In the FE model, they adopted the
angles which lead to the highest pressure capacity progressive damage model proposed by Linde et al.,96
depend primarily on the state of loading. From his which was originally used to model fibre-metal lamin-
study, winding angles of  55 should be used as the ates, to determine the failure initiation and damage
optimum angles for only the closed-end loading case progression in the reinforced tapes with the HDPE
in which the hoop-to-axial stress is 2:1, and is consistent modelled as a linear elastic material. The values of
with the ‘netting analysis’.43 However, it should be the burst pressure predicted by the FE model and ana-
noted that, in his experiments, even though the winding lytical solutions are compared with the experimental
angles are set to  55 , the pipes still fail due to weepage results from which they show 18.1% and 26.4% devi-
before fibre breakage. Xia et al.90 obtained similar ations, respectively. It can be seen in the experiment
results as filament-wound pipes with winding angles that the orientation of the crack in the outer layer of
of  30 and  70 showed brittle breaking behaviours the RTP is almost parallel to the fibre direction in the
caused by transverse tensile stresses. Evans and reinforced tape, which suggests that fibre breakage is
Gibson91 investigated the effect of the matrix materials the cause of failure of the entire pipe. The same results
on the optimum winding angles in more detail. They are observed in the pressure testing conducted by
showed that the actual optimum winding angles deviate Gibson et al.61 in which all specimens achieve the full
from those predicted by the ‘netting analysis’ depending strength of the reinforcements. They also demonstrated
on the ratio of the matrix to reinforcement stiffness. a modified laminate theory for analysing the mechan-
Also, Parnas and Katirci92 demonstrated that the opti- ical behaviours of fibre-reinforced PE composites in
mum winding angle for filament-wound composite ves- which the nonlinear mechanical behaviour of the
sels ranges from 52.1 to 54.2 depending on the matrix materials are modelled numerically. Their
geometry and failure criteria used. approach shows reasonable agreement with most pres-
Studies of the mechanical behaviours of RTPs under sure-strain data from their experiments.
internal pressure have been reported in recent years.
Kruijer et al.93 developed a mathematical model
Offshore pipes under bending
based on a plane strain characterisation and conducted
experiments to study the deformation behaviour of an Research on the flexural behaviour of long metallic and
RTP constructed of a PE liner pipe over-wrapped with composite cylinders has been actively undertaken, with
two layers of non-impregnated twisted aramid cords several studies on the reeling of metallic pipes reported
when pressurised. The modelled hoop and axial strains in the literature.97–99 It has been shown that the min-
showed considerable deviations from the measured imum allowable bend radius of a metallic pipe can be
values, which they suggested could be caused by the limited by the elastic strain limit of the metallic material
nonlinear behaviour of PE and, therefore, it is neces- as the pipe may bend into the plastic range during the
sary to take into account material nonlinearity when winding and unwinding processes. Brazier100 studied
modelling the mechanical behaviours of RTPs. They the flexural behaviour of a long metallic pipe subjected
also indicated that the ratio between the average to pure bending. Due to the induced bending moment,
hoop and axial stresses is in the order of 2.25:1 for a an ovalisation occurs in the cross-section of the pipe,
10 Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

resulting in a progressive reduction in its flexural stiff- collapse of long, relatively thick-walled metal pipes
ness, which is known as the Brazier effect. The pipe under combined bending and external pressure through
then buckles when the induced bending moment experimental and numerical efforts, which showed that
becomes larger than the critical moment. Kedward101 the nature of their instability and corresponding critical
extended Brazier’s approach to thin-walled orthotropic loads is dependent on their loading paths. Stephens
cylinders and presented theoretical solutions, which et al.111 studied the nonlinear collapse of long, cylin-
enable calculation of the critical moment for pipes drical shell structures subjected to combined bending
made from orthotropic materials. Although Chan and and uniform normal pressure loads. They demonstrated
Demirhan102 created a closed-form solution to deter- that the circumferential flattening of a pipe’s cross-
mine the bending stiffness of laminated composite section is the dominant collapse mode for those with
pipes, their work was shown to be appropriate for higher length/radius ratios. Experimental results of col-
only pipes with small diameters. lapses of aluminium and steel pipes under combined
With the aid of Finite Element Analysis (FEA), bending and external pressure were reported by
Rodriguez and Ochoa103 conducted numerical studies Kyriakides112 and Johns et al.113 who showed that the
to analyse the flexural behaviours of carbon fibre/epoxy nature of instability of a pipe also depends on its D=t
and glass fibre/epoxy pipes, which showed that failures ratio. In addition, Johns et al.113 presented an approach
of the pipes are characterised by damage initiation in for analysing the bifurcation type of pipe instability.
their composite layers. They analysed the progressive Kyriakides and Shaw114 developed theoretical methods
development of damage which indicated that, as for investigating the limit-load type of instability of a
expected, epoxy-based composite pipes cannot be pipe. Bai et al.115,116 published articles discussing the
used as spoolable pipes as they fail easily in the brittle collapse of metal pipes under combined external pres-
mode under bending. Xia et al.104 developed analytical sure, tension and bending which showed that the mater-
means of studying the stress–strain responses and ial properties of a pipe are crucial for determining its
deflections of filament-wound fibre-reinforced sand- collapse response and envelopes. Gong et al.117 con-
wich pipes subjected to pure bending but did not per- ducted a similar study considering different D=t
form any failure modelling. Most recently, Ashraf ratios, which demonstrated that the values of the crit-
et al.47 presented numerical studies investigating the ical external pressure of pipes with lower D=t ratios are
spoolability of RTPs made from PEEK and AS4- larger than those with higher D=t ratios.
carbon fibre-reinforced PEEK composites. Similar to Nevertheless, research results for the mechanical
the findings from Rodriguez and Ochoa’s analysis, the behaviours of composite pipes under combined bending
spoolability of this RTP is rather limited as it fails at a and external pressure are limited. Starbuck and
large radius due to a matrix failure in the transverse Eberle118 developed an analytical technique for the
direction in the fibre-reinforced layers. Although the design of spoolable composite pipes considering load-
aforementioned studies provide effective methods for ing scenarios including bending strain, axial force,
evaluating the flexural behaviours of pipes, most con- internal and external pressures, elevated temperature
sidered the mechanical behaviours of the materials to and combinations of them. Their study showed that
be linear elastic. different angle-ply laminate architectures are required
for different loading scenarios to achieve better per-
Offshore pipes under combined bending and formances. Pavlou64 also presented theoretical means
of predicting the failures of composite pipes under com-
external pressure bined bending and external pressure for design pur-
In the past, RTPs have primarily been used in relatively poses. According to his research, two types of failure,
shallow water, at depths from 30 to 900 m, due to their material failure of the pipe wall and buckling of the
low resistance to external pressure as excessive external structure, can occur.
pressure results in their catastrophic collapse.105
However, it has recently been reported that its light
weight, high performance and good spoolability
Offshore pipes under combined bending and tension
enable an RTP to be an ideal design for deep-water As previously discussed, RTPs can be installed by the
riser applications in which a pipe is expected to experi- reel-lay method which involves spooling a pipe onto a
ence significant bending and high external pressure transportable reel, during which it experiences signifi-
during its installation and operational phases.106–108 cant bending in the presence of axial tension,119 trans-
The mechanical behaviour of offshore pipes subjected porting the reel to the site of the pipeline and
to combined bending and external pressure has unwinding the pipe from the reel. Substantial attention
attracted substantial attention over the last few dec- has been paid to studying the responses of offshore
ades. Corona and Kyriakides109,110 investigated the pipes under combined bending and tension.
Yu et al. 11

Wilhoit and Merwin120 presented theoretical solutions The responses of cylindrical pipes under combined
to identify the effect of axial tension on the moment- external pressure and tension has been studied by many
carrying capacity of a pipe. They found that axial ten- researchers for a long time. Earlier studies126–128 on the
sion reduces the pipe’s moment-carrying capability but collapse of metallic pipes under combined external
also decreases the moment acting on the pipe. Dyau pressure and axial tension were developed to create
and Kyriakides121 investigated the ovalisation in design criteria for the oil-well casings recommended
cross-sections of elastic-plastic pipes caused by com- by API BUL 5C3.129 They showed that the equation
bined bending and tension through a combination of provided by the API recommendation provides a con-
experiments and theoretical analyses, which showed servative estimate of the collapse strength. Babcock and
that it depends on the loading path, material and geo- Madhaven130 studied the collapse of a metallic pipe
metric properties of the pipe (e.g. yield strengths and under combined external pressure and axial tension
D=t ratios). Similar results were obtained in a study analytically and experimentally, and their pressure-ten-
conducted by Bai et al.122 Gong et al.117 studied the sion interaction collapse envelope is shown in Figure 4.
buckling responses of offshore pipes subjected to com- It is obvious that the axial tension results in a reduction
bined bending and tension through both analytical and in the resistance of the pipe to external pressure. Later,
numerical efforts. Their results indicated that, in add- Madhavan et al.131 extended their study to pipes with
ition to a pipe’s loading paths and material D=t ratios ranging from 10 to 40. They found that the
properties, different values of its load combination extent of the reduction in the collapse pressure of the
lead to significant differences in its load-carrying cap- pipe and the nature of the collapse pressure-tension
acity and buckling deformation. Therefore, the applied interaction profile are strongly dependent on the
tension should be minimised to achieve a better load- stress–strain behaviour of the pipe’s material.
carrying capacity. Kyriakides and Corona132 analysed the buckling and
Since the use of composite pipes for offshore appli- collapse of metallic pipes under this combined loading
cations is increasing rapidly, many studies concerning through an additional parametric study, which showed
the mechanical behaviours of composite pipes under that buckling and collapse are affected mainly by the
the loads encountered during installation and combin- D=t ratio, material elastic modulus and yield stress.
ations of these loads have been reported. Bai et al.123 Also, the loading path generally has a small influence
analysed the load-bearing capacity of an RTP under on the collapse envelopes.
axial loads, which showed that the tearing caused by Mistry et al.133 conducted experimental and theoret-
the axial tension can occur on its outside face. Most ical investigations into the failure of  55 filament-
recently, the ovality of an RTP based on PE subjected wound glass-fibre/epoxy cylindrical pipes with D=t
to combined bending and tension was investigated by ratios ranging from 2.5 to 20 under combined external
Bai et al.124 using a theoretical method and FE simula- pressure and axial loading. They observed both buck-
tions. Their study showed that the axial tension slows ling and material failures (first-ply failures) in their
down and even reduces the ovalisation of the pipe’s samples, with the buckling pressure decreasing rapidly
cross-section. It should be noted that they studied a with increasing D=t ratios and the pressure for the first-
short RTP (20 mm), with the material nonlinearity of ply failure not sensitive to the D=t ratio. Mistry134 the-
PE ignored in their FE model, which could have oretically studied the failures of filament-wound glass
resulted in an inadequate analysis. In addition, their fibre-reinforced plastic pipes under combined external
theoretical model was based on the model presented pressure and axial compression as well as the effect of
by Dyau and Kyriakides,121 which was originally devel- the winding angle on their strength, which demon-
oped for metallic pipes. Therefore, an approach con- strated that the failure of the pipe under this loading
sidering the plasticity of the material may not be case could be caused by either a buckling or material
suitable for RTPs as they will not deform plastically. failure. It also showed that the winding angle required
to achieve the optimal performance depends on the
Offshore pipes under combined external pressure hoop-to-axial membrane stress ratio. Dong and
Mistry135 confirmed Mistry’s findings134 through con-
and tension ducting experiments to examine the failure of  55 fila-
Except for the loads incurred during the reeling and ment-wound glass reinforced plastic cylinders with D=t
unreeling processes, the installation of RTPs in water ratios ranging from 48 to 54 under a combination of
also adds substantial loads to the pipes. It has been external pressure and axial compression. Both longitu-
shown that sections of the pipe laid on or near the dinal cracks resulting from buckling and shear cracks
seabed are subjected to a significant combination of caused by the failure of the material occurred in their
external pressure and tension apart from bending and tests. Bai et al.136 developed a two-dimensional (2D)
external hydrostatic pressure.125 theoretical model based on the theory initially proposed
12 Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 0(0)

Figure 4. Pressure-tension interaction collapse envelope for pipe with D/t ratio ¼ 25.131

by Kyriakides et al.132 and a three-dimensional (3D) FE theoretically and, in their experiments, observed evi-
model to study the behaviours of RTPs under com- dent delamination in some specimens. Putić et al.143
bined external pressure and tension. The RTPs were further studied the torsional properties of, and
assumed to be made from PE and combinations of damage in, glass/epoxy composite pipes, which
aramid fibres and PE matrix materials. However, the showed that excessive torsion can cause damage, such
nonlinear behaviours of PE and fibre-reinforced PE as fracture of the fibres and matrix delamination, which
composites were not considered in their study. They results in the appearance of cracks on the pipes and, in
found that the RTP collapses due to buckling at a many cases, complete breakage of them.
low axial tension whereas, at high tension levels, its With the rising demand to improve the effectiveness
maximum strain in the RTP reaches the allowable of aircraft structures in the aerospace industry, substan-
strain of the material which causes the pipe to fail. In tial efforts144–146 have been made to investigate the
addition, the loading paths have considerable effects on buckling and post-buckling responses of carbon fibre-
the failure of RTPs. reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite cylinders under
combined axial tension and torsion. These studies have
Offshore pipes under combined torsion, bending, identified the effect of the laminate’s orientation on
buckling and demonstrated that buckling loads are
axial tension and external pressure strongly dependent on the loading sequence. Crate
The earliest publication on the mechanical behaviours et al.147 examined the effect of internal pressure on
of homogeneous orthotropic cylindrical shells under the buckling of thin-walled cylinders under torsion
torsion can probably be traced back to Shaw and and found that applying internal pressure raises the
Simitses137 who analysed the instability of laminated shear buckling stress. Chouchaoui148,149 conducted a
cylindrical shells under torsion. Since then, several stu- similar study of a laminated cylindrical pipe under ten-
dies investigating the torsional buckling of composite sion, torsion, bending and internal and external pres-
pipes have been published.138–141 As these studies con- sures, which roughly described some characteristics of
sidered buckling to be the most important failure mech- the mechanical behaviours of the pipe under these
anism when composite pipes are subjected to torsion, loads. Holston et al.150 developed a combined analyt-
they focused on determining the critical load. Wall and ical and experimental investigation of the stability of
Card142 investigated the torsional shear strength of fila- composite cylindrical shells. They considered five load-
ment-wound glass-epoxy tubes experimentally and ings: (a) uniform axial compression; (b) torsion; (c)
Yu et al. 13

bending; (d) combined torsion and uniform axial com- Results obtained from this work can be used to
pression and (e) combined bending and uniform axial improve the design of RTPs for offshore applications.
compression. The experimental buckling loads showed However, the relative lack of large-scale experimen-
10 to 33% differences from the analytical solutions in tal results of RTPs subjected to different types of loads
which the effects of boundary conditions were not con- should be noted. These experimental results could not
sidered. This demonstrates the significance of taking only validate the theoretical calculations and FE mod-
into account boundary conditions for determining elling of RTPs but also provide more real-life loading
the mechanical behaviours of composites pipes under conditions and performance cases. Future studies in
combined loadings, which could be achieved by this area would benefit significantly from more industry
employing FEA. contacts with manufactures and operators of RTPs.

Conclusions Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
In this work, the development of RTPs and their appli- respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
cations in the offshore oil and gas industry are article.
reviewed. Relevant design recommendations and stand-
ards which have been used in the industry at present are Funding
demonstrated. Even though these provide sufficient
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
insight for the design, materials and structures of cur-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
rent RTP products, it has been found that, to enlarge article: One of the authors (K. Yu) acknowledges the financial
their application envelope (e.g. riser), RTPs could be support provided by University of New South Wales
analysed for more complicated loads than those speci- (UNSW) to enable this research to be conducted.
fied in currently used documents after reviewing load-
ing conditions, which could be experienced by offshore References
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