Riser Design – API 16Q

1. Riser Components Selection Criteria:

1) Design of a riser system begins with an assessment of expected operating conditions: an

engineering analysis to establish parameters such as tensile, bending, and combined
stresses (maximum and mean), buoyancy requirements, top tension requirements,
vessel RAOs (Response Amplitude Operators), etc.

2) Other factors influencing riser system design include riser length (water depth),
dimensional requirements (bore, wall thickness, etc.), internal pressure rating,
choke/kill, and auxiliary line specifications, makeup method, storage and handling
conditions, operating economy, etc.

3) Once established, these riser system design criteria should permit the selection of riser
components that suit the application.

2. Tensioner System:

1) A typical tensioner system is a hydraulic ram with large air-filled accumulator system.
The accumulator system supplies the pressure and maintains the pressure.

2) Tensioner systems typically supply constant axial vertical forces all the time and are
typically four-part line receiving system, which means that stroke of the cylinder, will be
1/4thof the total vessel heave.

3) Selection Criteria:

- Fleet Angle: Smaller the fleet angle, larger is the vertical component of the force applied
by the tensioner system. Increase in fleet angle will lead to increase in the horizontal
component of the applied force, which is not what is desired.
- Wireline Life
- Accumulator System: each tensioner system should be equipped with an accumulator
unit, which should be large enough to ensure that it can supply the required hydraulic
fluid to the piston/ram. Larger the air pressure vessel, lower will be the fluctuation in
the pressure as the piston strokes in and out.

- Fluid and Airflow requirement

- Friction and Inertia losses: Seal friction, sheave friction, and inertia of sheaves, wire
rope, tensioner rods, and pistons all contribute to variations in the wireline tension
- Dynamic Tension Limit: DTL= P x Acnl x NLP
P , = maximumallowable system operating pressure
Acn = effective hydraulic area
N,, = number of line parts
- All components in a riser system installation, including piping, should be
designed for the maximum allow- able working pressure.
- Thetensioner system should be designed to permit one unit to be out of service
for maintenance or repair without jeopardizing the ability of the remaining
tensioner units to provide the required tension to the marine drilling riser. A
unit may be either a single tensioner or a pair of tensioners, depending on
specific design.
 - Max. Tensioner rating: 90% of DTL, to ensure that maximum variations are always
less than the DTL
- Velocity Limiting Device: sense the abnormally high fluid flowrate and immediately
stop or greatly reduce the fluid flow into the tensioner. If a tensioner wireline should
break or other failure occur which would allow the tensioner to stroke out at an
uncontrolled rate.

3. Diverter System (Surface):

1) Placed just below the Rotary Table and is connected to the upper flex joint on bottom. It
is latched into a built-in housing below the Rotary table

2) Opens up diverter lines and closes mud line simultaneously

4. Telescopic Joint:

1) To compensate for the translational movement between the vessel and the riser

2) Riser tensioner ring attached to the top of the telescopic joint outer barrel. Pinned joints
at the pedeyes are used to connect the tensioner ring with the tension lines.
 3) Selection Criteria:

- Strength
- Stroke: the combined stroke must accommodate the combined heave, vessel
offset, tidal change and the maximum vessel excursion in the event of station-
keeping failure
- Tensioner
- Auxiliary lines
- Packing elements: double packer elements are used for redundancy
- Handling and storage: telescopic joint is usually longer and heavier than the
normal riser joints, so needs special handling equipment

5. Riser Joints:
1) The main tube is specified by the outer diameter, WT and the material properties
2) Some typical riser joint designs:
13 5/8” (346.1 mm) BOP, 16” (406.4 mm) Riser
16 3/4” (425.5 mm) BOP, 18 5/8” (473.1 mm) Riser
18 3/4” (476.3 mm) BOP, 20” (508 mm) or 21” (533.4 mm) Riser
20 3/4” (527.1 mm) BOP, 22” (558.8 mm) or 24” (609.6 mm) Riser
21 l/4” (539.8 mm) BOP, 24” (609.6 mm) Riser

3) Riser couplings: i) Dog type ii) Threaded iii) Breech-block iv) Flanged
4) Generally used materials: X-52, X-65 and X-80
5) Outer shell of the riser has support brackets for kill and the choke lines and typically
range from 50-75ft in length

6. LMRP (Lower Marine Riser Package):

1) The Lower Marine Riser Package typically includes an assemblage of a riser adapter,
flex/ ball joint, one, two, or no annular BOPs, subsea control pods, and a hydraulic
connector mating the riser system to the BOP stack. The LMRP provides a
releasable interface between the riser and the BOP stack. In addition, it provides
hydraulic control of BOP stack functions through the control pods. Jumper hoses
provide a flow path around the flex/ball joint for the choke and kill lines.

Riser Design:
1) Look for Appendix-B in API 16Q for the data which may be required to carry out a full
riser analysis
2) Some of the things which needs to be considered to carry out a Riser Design analysis:
- Vessel station keeping considerations
- Riser induced load considerations: the loads induced on the LMRP, BOP, Casing,
wellhead, auxiliary lines, mud boost lines etc. due to riser response
- Currents: velocity and the amplitude of the currents
- Top tension load requirements: tensile load required to ensure that the riser
does not buckle due to various loadings
- Mud fluid density: Top tension requirement should be done for various fluid
densities, from seawater up to maximum anticipated density

3) Operating modes for a riser:

- Connected, drilling: this covers all the regular drilling activities, which includes,
drilling ahead, circulation, tripping, casing running etc.

- Connected, Non-Drilling: This covers the activities when the riser is still connected to
the BOPs etc., but you cant circulate, trip the pipe. This may be encountered due to
deteriorated environmental conditions
 - Disconnected mode: this one covers the most sever environmental conditions,
under which the riser has to be dis-connected as it is no longer considered safe
to drill, stay connected

4) Top Tension: calculate the top tension requirement using the following formula:
The minimum top tension, Tti, is determined by:
Tlin = Ts,, N/[R, (N-n)]
where,
Ts, = Minimum Slip Ring Tension = WBf, - B,fk + A;[d,H, - dvHvl

- The top tension calculation should have enough redundancy to accommodate

for any tension line failure
- Top tension requirement is a function of the type/density of the mud

5) Structural Modeling:
- Geometric non-linearties must be considered in the analysis if the riser develops
an angle > 10 Deg

- A riser is modeled as a tensioned beam loaded throughout its length with

boundary conditions at the end

- Element length in the analysis should be specified considering the loading

conditions at that place. Higher variations in loading, smaller the joint/element
length to get more accurate analysis

- The dimension of the auxiliary lines such as kill, choke and other supported lines
in addition to the main riser tube body must be considered during the
hydrodynamic analysis. The weight used in the analysis must be the total weight
of the riser tub + all the auxiliary attachments such as choke, kill, support
brackets etc.

- Boundary Conditions:
o Top Boundary: generally include top tension, vessel offsets and motions
as well as the rotational stiffness of the upper ball/flex joint
o Bottom Boundary: bottom boundary condition may emanate from either
connected or disconnected modes. In the connected mode the riser
model usually ends at the lower flex/ball joint, in that case the rotational
stiffness of that flex/ball joint is a bottom boundary condition and the
vertical and the horizontal loads as well as the bottom angle are the
output of the analysis. Some people prefer to keep the structural
(conductor) casing as the lower boundary in which case the LMRP, BOP
etc. must be taken into account and the lower flex/ball joint will be
treated as an intermediate joint rather than lower boundary conditions

6) Hydrodynamic Modeling:
- Hydrodynamic modeling is done to calculate the effect of hydrodynamic forces
on the drag etc.
- Drag and Mass coefficients play a very key role in Hydrodynamic analysis along
with cross-section, Reynolds number, roughness, orientation of auxiliary lines
etc. and must be chosen based on experience with great care. Refer to API-16Q
for generic values

- Mostly the analysis is done in planar mode, which means that the forces,
motions etc., are all considered to be acting in one direction whereas in reality it
could be bipolar. If considered must, should be carried out.
 7) FEA:
- Either a Finite Element or Finite Difference analysis is done

- A local FEA may be considered to account for local details of the riser structure
such as flanges, choke, kill, joints etc.

Operating Procedures:

1) The riser operating manual must contain normal running in, operating and emergency
disconnect procedures

2) Running in: Calculate the riser length required, specific to the site, wellhead conditions
etc.
 3) Operating Conditions:
- During normal drilling operations flex/ball joint angle, vessel offset and mud
density should be monitored

- If the mean flex/ball joint angle exceeds 3 Deg., and can not be corrected by
adjusting riser tension and vessel offset, preparation should be made to suspend
any operations and suspend any operations that involve any pipe movement in
the well

- Hydraulic Tensioner Failure: if any of the hydraulic tensioner fails, then check of
the remaining tensioners can meet the top tension requirement, if yes, then
adjust the remaining tensioners to ensure that adequate tension is maintained
all the time, else the drilling fluid may be circulated out of the riser to reduce the
tension requirements. If the situation worsens then riser should be
disconnected, hung-off or pulled

- Loss of buoyancy: loss of buoyancy can be detected by monitoring the lower

flex/ball joint angle, tension in an instrumented riser joint just above the lower
flex/ball joint or by TV inspection for damage or air leaks

- By adjusting the tension and vessel offset and attempt should be made to keep a
small flex/ball joint angle to facilitate the riser disconnect and lower the tension
to slightly above the hanging weight of riser and LMRP

- After disconnect the vessel should be moved off the location and the guidelines
must be slackened to prevent heaving riser and LMRP striking the BOP stack

- An emergency disconnect is sometimes necessary in case of excessive vessel

excursion and in blow out conditions

Special Conditions:
1) Deepwater > 2000 ft, UD > 5000 ft

- As the water depth increases the deck weight and storage requirements for riser
systems increases significantly and often represent a significant percentage of
the VDL (variable deck load)
- The additional weight is not just because of the extra length but also because of
the extra thickness, auxiliary lines and stronger couplings requirement

- For UD the cost and effectiveness of the buoyancy system must be weighted
against the weight and the cost of the riser itself

- For UD operations composite fiber materials, titanium are some of the high
strength/weight material being used/under consideration Titanium can give a
120Ksi strength, but the E is almost half of that steel and this may lead to
significantly higher response compared to the steel risers

- In case of an unwanted drift off or vessel motion the emergency disconnect

system should be able to disengage in around 30 sec time from the BOP stack

- An automatic disconnect secures and/or shears the string in BOP, disconnect the
riser and activates the anti-recoil system

- With depth the syntactic foam starts becoming ineffective due to requirement of
stronger and denser forma with depth. Air can buoyancy systems are more
effective for UD operations. Also, they can have a controlled bleed-off system to
have a controlled buoyancy control at any particular point of interest
Flowchart:

Decision Tree:
- What type of Well control equipment to be used- Surface or Sub-sea

- Surface mean- HP riser system, Sub-sea means low pressure riser system

- What riser type to be designed?

- Response of the platform/vessel to be determined- vessel characteristics

- Estimation of fatigue life?

- Prediction of extreme and operating loads

- Model the riser

o FEA done using COSMOS (Shell’s in-house tool). TIARA is used as well
 What kind of analysis- time or frequency domain?
 Analysis of a scenario when one of the tensioner cylinders fail

- Extreme Response Analysis

o Selection of extreme condition events such as 100-yr and a 25-yr
hurricane, 25-year loop current etc.- from where to get this data???-
Also, the probability of occurrence etc.
o Riser life (5-yrs for drilling vs. 30 years for production risers)
o Design Criteria:
 Basic allowable stress (what’s is the maximum allowable stress
level- 2/3rd of the Yp may be?)
 Riser location and wellhead tilt allowance, wherever applicable

- Data required:
o Vessel characteristics-who?
o Riser tensioner system properties/characteristics-who?
o Operating and extreme load conditions-who?
o Rotational stiffness of riser system components-who?
o Material to be used- properties- -who?

- Output:
o Maximum stress levels
o Tensioner strokes
o Axial stresses in riser for each design event
o Bending moments in the riser system and the resultant axial stresses for
each design event
o Calculate VME
o Requirement of things such as “stress joint, its length, material etc.”
o