Research On Analysis For Flexible Riser Bend Stiffener

Bend stiffener is the key accessory component for the application of flexible riser. As the widely used of flexible riser, bend stiffener is one of the essential equipment for exploiting deep water oil and gas resources in china. It’s necessary to study on the method of design and analysis for bend stiffener.The design of flexible riser bend stiffener can be divided into three parts:structure design, material selection, connection design. Each part need to design based on the design criterion. The analysis of bend stiffener is faced with three kinds of nonlinear problems, especially the material nonlinearity. Over the years, the scholars at home and abroad have done a lot of research work in these two aspects.This paper summarized the general process and steps of bend stiffener design, and proposed a design method that based on the failure modes. On this basis, this paper introduced a variable cross-section beam theory, and programed a smart software for bend stiffener preliminary design. The software was applied to actual design with good success. In order to get the accurate result, this paper used the finite element software to establish3D riser-bend stiffener model, and material nonlinearity was introduced into this model. The results showed the nonlinear influent the bend stiffener a lot. In the purpose of solving the limitation of bend stiffener application, this paper proposed an innovative form bend stiffener with curve outline. The theory and finite element model was used to analysis the new configuration. At last, the theory and model for design is applied to an example. The result of bend stiffener design was given for the flexible riser using in1500m depth water which is the typical condition of South China Sea.This research of the dissertation is sponsored by Hi-Tech Research and Development Program of China (863Program,2012AA090314)...