Submarine debris flow impact on pipelines — Part I: Experimental investigation

Estimating the impact forces exerted by a submarine debris flow on a pipeline is a challenge, and there is room for considerably more work to advance the state of the art. To this end, an experimental program was performed to investigate the impact on two pipeline installation scenarios: 1) suspended pipeline and 2) laid-on-seafloor pipeline. The results and observations from the experimental investigation are discussed. The definition of Reynolds number was modified for non-Newtonian fluids and an ad hoc method was developed to estimate the drag force exerted by an impact perpendicular to the pipe axis. The method may be used in prototype situations to estimate the drag force from submarine debris flow impact on pipelines. The experimental program was complemented by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses, the details of which are discussed in the accompanying paper.