A seismic design method for subsea pipelines against earthquake fault movement

As there are no specific guidelines on design of subsea pipelines crossing active seismic faults, methods for land buried pipelines have been applied to. Taking the large seismic fault movement into account, this paper proposes improved methods for seismic designs of subsea pipelines by comprehensively investigating the real constraining of soil on the pipelines, the interaction processes of soil with the pipeline, the plastic slippage of the soil, and the elastic-plastic properties of the pipeline materials. New formulas are given to calculate the length of transition section and its total elongation. These formulas are more reasonable in mechanism, and more practical for seismic design of subsea pipelines crossing active faults.