Large deformation three-dimensional static analysis of deep water marine risers

The problem of static three-dimensional, nonlinear, large deformation response of a marine riser is formulated within small strain theory and solved numerically. This type of analysis is necessary, for the new generation of drilling and production risers. The mathematical model takes properly into account the effects of internal and external pressure and the complete nonlinear boundary conditions, without linearizing the follower forces. The extensibility or inextensibility condition is used as the constitutive relation in the tangential direction. Torsion and bending are coupled. The external load and the boundary conditions are deformation dependent. A solution method is developed based on an incremental finite element algorithm, which involves a prediction-correction scheme. In the correction phase deformation dependent quantities are updated. The extensibility or inextensibility condition is used to reduce the degrees of freedom of the system. The numerical results of the developed computer code compare very well with available semi-analytical and numerical solutions. Three numerical applications are used to demonstrate the importance of large deformation, nonlinear and three-dimensional analyses.