Dynamic Response of Free-Span Submarine Pipelines:

Integral Transform Solution

Jing Cao1), *Tongtong Li2), Wei Liang3),

Menglan Duan4), Jijun Gu5) and Chen An6)
1)
COONC Research Institute, Beijing, China, 100027
2), 3), 4), 5), 6)
Offshore Oil/Gas Research Center, China University of Petroleum-Beijing,
Beijing, P. R. China, 102249

ABSTRACT

Large numbers of submarine pipelines are laid as the world now is attaching great
importance to offshore oil exploitation. Free spanning of submarine pipelines may be
caused by seabed unevenness, change of topology, artificial supports, etc. By
combining Iwan’s wake oscillator model with the differential equation which describes
the vibration behaviour of free-span submarine pipelines, the pipe-fluid coupling
equation is developed and solved in order to study the effect of both internal and
external fluid on the vibration behaviour of free-span submarine pipelines. Through
generalised integral transform technique (GITT), the governing equation indicating the
transverse displacement is transformed into a system of second-order ordinary
differential equations (ODEs) in temporal variable, eliminating the spatial variable. The
MATHEMATICA built-in function is then used to numerically solve the transformed ODE
system. The good convergence of the eigenfunction expansions proved that this method
is applicable for predicting the dynamic response of free-span pipelines subjected to
both internal flow and external current.

1. INTRODUCTION

The crucial works of a small number of disparate researchers in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries marked the beginnings of a concerted attempt to understand the
phenomenon of vortex shedding which continues to this day. A great amount of work
                                                              
1)
Chief Engineer
2)
Ph.D. Candidate
3)
Professor
4)
Professor
5)
Professor
6)
Professor
has been done to study the vortex-induced vibration (VIV) behaviour of underwater
structures, such as cable arrays, drilling risers, offshore platforms and pile supported
structures.
During the early days, the effect of the internal flow was often ignored. Iwan (1981)
proposed a vortex-induced oscillation model that can be used to solve problems that
involve non-uniform structures and flow profiles. Xu et al. (1999) developed the fatigue
damage models for multi-span pipelines detailed both in time and frequency domain
approaches. Pantazopoulos et al. (1993) put forward a Fourier Transformation based
methodology to study the VIV of free-span submarine pipelines. Bryndum and Smed
(1998) carried experiments in the VIV of submarine free spans under different boundary
conditions. Furnes (2003) formulated time domain model a free span pipeline subjected
to ocean currents in which the in-line and cross-flow deflections are coupled.
Recently, a significant number of achievements have been gained in
understanding the dynamic characteristics of submarine risers and pipelines conveying
internal fluid. Shen and Zhao (1996) studied the impact of internal fluid on the fatigue life
of submarine pipelines under vortex-induced vibration while simplifying the action of the
external flow on the pipe as a type of load, and ignoring the coupling effect of the two.
Guo et al. (2004) and Lou (2005) studied the coupled effect of internal and external fluid
on the response of VIV of marine risers by the method of Finite Element Method (FEM).
In addition, an increasing amount of interest is paid to the phenomenon of VIV that
concerns the influence of soil. Xing et al. (2005) developed a VIV model for the span
segment of buried submarine pipelines. In an experimental study conducted by Yang et
al. (2008), the cross-line VIV of a submarine pipeline near an erodible sandy seabed
under the influence of ocean currents was investigated. By using Visual Basic tools, Xie
et al. (2011) developed a VIV fatigue analysis program for submarine pipeline span
based on pipe-soil coupling non-linear modal. Wang et al. (2014) proposed a prediction
model for the VIV of deepwater steel catenary risers considering the riser-seafloor
interaction.
Finite Difference Method (FDM), Finite Element Method (FEM) and some other
methods have been taken for the numerical solution of coupled nonlinear oscillator
models. However, there exist no previous researches taking the generalised integral
transform technique (GITT) approach to solve such coupled fluid and structural
equations. GITT is still in its starting stage in the area of structure mechanics. Ma et al.
(2006) applied GITT to solve a transverse vibration problem of an axial moving string
and the convergence behaviour of integral transform solution was examined. An and Su
(2011, 2014) employed GITT to obtain a hybrid analytical-numerical solution for dynamic
response of clamped axially moving beams, and later the axially moving Timoshenko
beams. Recently, Gu et al. (2012, 2013) used GITT to prove that variation of mean axial
tension induced by elongation should not be neglected in the numerical simulation of
VIV of a long flexible cylinder, and in addition, predicted the dynamic response of a
clamped-clamped pipe conveying fluid, where the convergence behaviour was
thoroughly examined.
It is against this backdrop that the research presented in this article was
undertaken. To this end, the remainder of this paper is organised as follows. In Section 2,
the mathematical model of the coupled structure and wake oscillator model is put
forward. In Section 3, the hybrid numerical-analytical solution is obtained through
integral transform. Section 4 presents the numerical results and a parametric study,
where the convergence behaviour of the present approach is assessed. Finally, Section
5 concludes this article.

2. DESCRIPTION OF MATHEMATICAL MODEL

As is shown in Fig. 1, a Cartesian coordinate system is adopted to depict the

vibration behaviour of a submarine free span under the influence of both the internal and
external fluid. The x-axis is the initial axis of the pipe; the y-axis is in the same direction
as the current, horizontally orthogonal to the x-axis; and the z-axis is in the opposite
direction of gravity. Consider a free-span pipeline that is horizontally pinned at x  0
and x  L . The pipeline is cylindrical with a constant outer diameter of D and inner
diameter of Di the axial tension is T and the pressure is P. Assume that:
(1) The internal fluid flows at a constant velocity of V.
(2) The effect of waves is ignored and the current is at a constant speed of U.
(3) The property of the pipe is linear and the pipe is elastic.

Fig. 1 Free Span of a Submarine Pipeline

Considering the movement of the free spanning pipeline with pinned-pinned

boundary conditions in the xoz plane subject to internal and external fluid, tension and
the pressure from the internal fluid, according to Guo et al. (2004), Lou et al. (2005) and
Faccinetti et al. (2004), the coupled structure and wake oscillator model of the pipe
vibration can be described as:
 4 z 2 z 2 z z 2 z eU 2 DCL
 EI  ( mV 2
 P A  T )  2m V  (r  r )  m 
x4 x2 xt t t 2
i i a i s f
2
 2 (1)
  q   w (q2 1) q  w 2q    z
2

 t 2 f
t
f
D t 2
where,
EI -- flexural stiffness; P -- internal pressure; Ai -- area of the inner cross section of the
pipeline; Ta -- axial tension; e -- density of external fluid; D -- outside diameter of the

pipeline; CL -- coefficient of instantaneous sectional lift on the pipe; rs -- structural

damping; rf -- fluid added damping, equaling to w f  e D 2 , of which    is a coefficient

related to the mean sectional drag efficient of the pipe - C D , and  equals to

CD / (4 St ) , (here St is the Strouhal number); and for unit length of the pipeline,

m  mi  m p  me , with mi being the internal fluid mass, m p being the mass of the

pipeline, me   being the added mass due to external fluid, and me  CM  e D 2 / 4 , in which

CM is the added mass coefficient; q   is the reduced fluctuating lift coefficient, and

q( x, t )  2CL ( x, t ) / CL0 , and CL is the lift coefficient, CL0   the reference lift coefficient
which can be obtained from observation of a fixed structure subject to vortex shedding;
w f  2 StU / D   denotes the vortex-shedding frequency; parameters  and   can be

derived from experimental results by Faccinetti et al. (2004), with the former  being 12
and the latter 0.3.
As the free span considered in this article is pinned-pinned, the boundary
conditions is as follows:
2 z(0, t ) 2 z(L, t )
z (0, t )  0 ,  0 , z ( L, t )  0 , 0 (2a)
x2 x2

2q(0, t ) 2q(L, t )
q (0, t )  0 ,  0 , q ( L, t )  0 ,  0            (2b)
x2 x2

Then the following dimensionless variables are introduced:

x z EI , V *  VL mp , w *  w L2 mp eU 2CL 0 L4
t
x*  , z*  , t *  2 f f ,  (3)
L D L mp EI EI 4 EI
By combining Eq. (3) into Eq. (1), two dimensionless equations are obtained
(leaving out the asterisks for simplicity)
   4 z miV 2 PAi L2 Ta L2  2 z 2 miV  2 z L2 z m  2 z
 4  (   )   ( r  r )   q
 x EI x 2 m p x t E Im p  t m p  t
s f 2
mp EI
             (4)
 q2
q  z
2

 t 2   w f ( q  1) t  w f q   t 2
2 2

along with the boundary conditions

2 z(0, t ) 2 z(1, t)
z (0, t )  0 ,  0 , z (1, t )  0 , 0 (5a)
x2 x2
and
2q(0, t )  2 q(1, t )
q (0, t )  0 ,  0 , q (1, t )  0 ,  0 .                        (5b)
x2 x2
The initial conditions is defined as:

z ( x, 0) q ( x, 0)
z ( x , 0)  0 ,  0 , q ( x , 0)  1 ,  0. (6)
t t

3. INTEGRAL TRANSFORM SOLUTION

According to the idea of GITT method, the next step is to select the auxiliary
eigenvalue problem and propose the eigenfunction expansion for Eq. (4) under the
boundary conditions (5). For the transverse displacement of a free span, the eigenvalue
problem is chosen as:
d4 Xi (x) 4
 i Xi (x) , 0  x  1 (7a)
d x4
with the boundary conditions being
d2 X i (0) d2 X i (0)
Xi (0)  0 ,  0 , Xi (1)  0 , 0 (7b)
d x2 d x2
where X i and i are respectively the eigenfunction and the eigenvalue of problem (7),
satisfying the following orthogonality,
1
 X (x) X (x)d x   N
0 i j ij i (8)

where  ij is the Kronecker delta, and for i  j ,  ij  0 ; for i  j ,  ij  1 .

The normalization integral is evaluated as
1
Ni   Xi 2 ( x)d x (9)
0

Problem (7) is now readily solved analytically to yield

 Xi (x)  sin(i x)                                                                                                             (10)
where the eigenvalue is obtained by:
i  i   , i   1, 2, 3, …                      (11)
and the normalization integral is evaluated as
1
Ni  , i   1, 2, 3, … (12)
2
Therefore, in this case, the normalised eigenfunction coincides with the original
eigenfunction itself, i.e.

X ( x)
X i ( x)  i 1/2 (13)
Ni
This solution proceeds by putting forward the integral transform pair – the integral
transformation itself and the inversion formula. Through integral transform, the spatial
coordinate x is eliminated.
For the transverse displacement:
1
zi (t )   X i ( x)z( x, t )d x , transform (14a)
0


z( x, t )  
X i ( x) zi (t ) , inversion (14b)
i 1

Similarly, the eigenvalue problem is chosen for q( x, t ) is

d4 Yk (x)
4
 k 4Yk (x) , 0  x  1 (15a)
dx
with the boundary conditions being:
d2 Yk (0) d2 Yk (1)
Yk (0)  0,  0 , Yk (1)  0 , 0 (15b)
d x2 d x2
where Yk   is the eigenfunction of problem (15) and k the corresponding eigenvalue.
And similarly,
1
 Y ( x)Y ( x) d x  
0 k l kl Nk , (16)
The same mathematical manipulation is carried here as Eqs.(8-13), and the eigenvalue
problem (15) defines the integral transform pair for the wake variable as follows:
1
qk (t )   Y k ( x)q( x, t )d x , transform (17a) 
0
 
q( x, t )  Y k ( x)qk (t) , inversion (17b)
k 1

To perform GITT, the dimensionless equation system (4) is multiplied by operators

1 1
0
X i ( x) d x and  Y k ( x) d x , and also the inverse formula (14) and (17) are applied,

0

resulting in a set of ordinary differential equations:

miV 2 PAi L2 Ta L2  2miV 

d z j (t )
i 4 z i (t )  (   ) Aij z j (t )  B ij  
mp EI EI j 1 mp j 1 dt

m d 2 z i (t )
( rs  r f )
L2 d z i (t )
    Cik q k (t ) (18a)
EI m p d t mp d t 2 k 1

d2 qk (t )   
d q s (t ) d q (t )
f  Dklrs q l (t )q r (t )
2
  w  wf k wf 2 qk (t ) = 
dt l 1 r 1 s 1 dt dt

d 2 z i (t )
  Eki                                                                                                         (18b) 
i 1 d t2
where the coefficients are analytically determined by the following integrals:
d2 d
1 1 1
X j ( x) X j ( x)
Aij   X i ( x)

2
d x , Bij   X i ( x )
d x , Cik  
X i ( x)Y k ( x) d x ,
0
d x 0
d x 0

1 1
Dklrs   Y k ( x)Y l ( x)Y r ( x)Y s ( x) d x , Eki   Y k ( x)
X i ( x) d x                                   (19)
0 0

In a similar manner, the boundary and the initial conditions are also transformed to
omit the spatial variable, yielding
d2 zi (0) d2 qk (0)
zi (0)  0 ,  0 , q k (0)  0 ,  0 , i , k    1, 2, 3, …              (20a)
dt2 dt2
d zi (0) 1
d qk (0)
zi (0)  0 ,  0 , q k (0)   Y k ( x ) d x ,  0 , i , k    1, 2, 3, …          (20b)
dt 0
dt
For computational purposes, the expansions for the transverse displacement z( x, t )  
and the reduced lift coefficient q( x, t ) are truncated to finite N order. The equation
system (18), in truncated series, are subsequently calculated by the NDSolve routine of
Mathematica. Once zi (t ) and q k (t ) are numerically evaluated, the inversion formulas
Eqs.(14) and (17) are than applied to obtain the explicit analytical expressions for the
dimensionless z( x, t ) and q( x, t ) . 
 
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

In this Section, the numerical results of the transverse displacement z ( x, t ) a

free-span submarine pipeline subject to both internal and external fluid under
pinned-pinned boundary condition is presented.
The main parameters used in the present work is set as follows:

Table 1 Main Parameters of the Pipeline and the Fluid

L D Di ρp ρe ρi EI
CM CD CL0 St 
(m) (m) (m) (kg/m3) (kg/m3) (kg/m3) (Nm2)

80 0.324 0.292 8200 1025 908.2 3.68×107 1 1.2 0.3 0.2

Assume P = 0, Ta = 50 kN. The dimensionless transverse deflection z ( x, t ) is

calculated with two different values of the dimensionless constant internal fluid velocity,
i.e. V = 2, 4, and two different values of constant current velocity, i.e. U = 0.05 m/s, 0.1
m/s. The convergence behaviour of the integral transform solution is examined for an
increasing truncation terms N = 4, 8 at t = 5, 20, 50. The results of (i) V = 2, U = 0.05 m/s,
(ii) V = 4, U = 0.05 m/s, (iii) V = 2, U= 0.1 m/s, and (iv) V = 4, U = 0.1 m/s, are displayed
in Tables 2 and 3.
The parametric study indicates that either along with the increasing velocity of the
current or the internal flow, the amplitude and the vibration frequency of the system will
rise (see Tables 2-3). If the frequency of the vibration of free span reaches its natural
frequency, resonance will occur, resulting in not only a severe damage to the pipeline
but also environmental pollution.
Table 2 Convergence Behaviour of z( x, t ) for V = 2, 4 and U = 0.05 m/s
V = 2; U = 0.05 m/s V = 4; U = 0.05 m/s
x N=4 N=8 N=16 x N=4 N=8 N=16
t=5 t=5
0.1 0.000246477 0.000246178 0.000245858 0.1 0.000608827 0.000608508 0.000607994
0.3 0.000629393 0.000626839 0.000626067 0.3 0.00160222 0.00159775 0.00159652
0.5 0.000753193 0.000750787 0.000749853 0.5 0.00201252 0.0020085 0.00200704
0.7 0.000594333 0.000591919 0.000591149 0.7 0.00167448 0.00167035 0.00166912
0.9 0.000224056 0.000223493 0.00022318 0.9 0.000655365 0.000654412 0.000653885
t=20 t=20
0.1 -0.000482822 -0.000487265 -0.000488488 0.1 -0.000720719 -0.000727059 -0.000728882
0.3 -0.00124594 -0.00125394 -0.00125687 0.3 -0.00186633 -0.00187904 -0.00188352
0.5 -0.00152536 -0.0015363 -0.00153979 0.5 -0.00228878 -0.00230545 -0.00231084
0.7 -0.00124337 -0.00125136 -0.00125428 0.7 -0.00185927 -0.00187193 -0.00187639
0.9 -0.00048113 -0.000485571 -0.000486792 0.9 -0.000716109 -0.000722382 -0.000724192
t=50 t=50
0.1 -0.000810771 -0.000827957 -0.000833269 0.1 -0.00122897 -0.00125392 -0.00126177
0.3 -0.00209535 -0.00213259 -0.00214511 0.3 -0.0031872 -0.00324447 -0.00326355
0.5 -0.00256874 -0.00261509 -0.00262998 0.5 -0.00391482 -0.00398584 -0.00400879
0.7 -0.00209411 -0.00213133 -0.00214384 0.7 -0.00318246 -0.00323964 -0.0032587
0.9 -0.000809954 -0.000827118 -0.000832425 0.9 -0.00122586 -0.00125074 -0.00125857
Table 3 Convergence Behaviour of z( x, t ) for V = 2, 4 and U = 0.1 m/s
V = 2; U = 0.1 m/s V = 4; U = 0.1 m/s
x N=4 N=8 N=16 x N=4 N=8 N=16
t=5 t=5
0.1 -0.00106358 -0.00107869 -0.0010834 0.1 -0.00240079 -0.00242261 -0.0024299
0.3 -0.00275696 -0.0027884 -0.00279983 0.3 -0.0062373 -0.00628876 -0.00630683
0.5 -0.00340531 -0.00344649 -0.00346019 0.5 -0.00765249 -0.00771742 -0.00773931
0.7 -0.00280937 -0.00284057 -0.002852 0.7 -0.00617993 -0.00623138 -0.0062495
0.9 -0.00109743 -0.00111297 -0.00111768 0.9 -0.00236394 -0.00238703 -0.00239437
t=20 t=20
0.1 -0.000699271 -0.000720542 -0.000726849 0.1 -0.00190223 -0.00194586 -0.00195777
0.3 -0.00184928 -0.00190262 -0.00191804 0.3 -0.00502415 -0.00513528 -0.00516521
0.5 -0.00230868 -0.00237113 -0.00238983 0.5 -0.00627603 -0.00640922 -0.00644599
0.7 -0.00187465 -0.00192839 -0.00194393 0.7 -0.00511722 -0.00522983 -0.00526024
0.9 -0.000715982 -0.000737644 -0.000744038 0.9 -0.00196312 -0.00200814 -0.00202037
t=50 t=50
0.1 0.00153519 0.00158746 0.00161046 0.1 0.00044856 0.000480821 0.000514123
0.3 0.00389293 0.00401326 0.00406872 0.3 0.000999697 0.00107406 0.00115676
0.5 0.00470787 0.0048684 0.00493452 0.5 0.00106964 0.00118013 0.00127924
0.7 0.00387069 0.00399057 0.00404595 0.7 0.000905482 0.000976879 0.00105917
0.9 0.00152056 0.00157242 0.00159537 0.9 0.000386975 0.000416935 0.000449964
 Fig. 2-5 are the GITT solution for the dimensionless z ( x, t ) under different internal

and external fluid velocities in 3-D diagrams.

Fig. 2 GITT Solution for the dimensionless z ( x, t ) with the V = 2, U = 0.05 m/s

Fig. 3 GITT Solution for the dimensionless z ( x, t ) with the V = 4, U = 0.05 m/s

Fig. 4 GITT Solution for the dimensionless z ( x, t ) with the V = 2, U = 0.1 m/s
 Fig. 5 GITT Solution for the dimensionless z ( x, t ) with the V = 4, U = 0.1 m/s

5. CONCLUSION

It is shown in the present studies that GITT is an adequate approach for analyzing
the dynamic response of a free-span submarine pipeline under the influence of both the
external current and the internal flow. It can be employed for benchmarking purposes,
yielding sets of reference results with controlled accuracy, and on the other hand, as an
engineering simulation tool with its lower truncation orders and exceptional
computational performance.
Due to the limit of time, this article only cover the work presented above. It is suggested
that more parameters need to be studied under higher truncation orders, and the results
be compared with and verified by other methodologies.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is supported by Science Foundation of China University of Petroleum,

Beijing (No. 2462013YJRC003 and No. 2462015YQ0403) and China National 973
Project (No. 2011CB013702).

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