Subsea Intervention System Connector Capacities per the Elastic-Plastic Analysis Methodology

Abstract

The offshore oil and gas industry is drilling into and producing from wells in high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) environments. This has created a greater demand to develop more advanced tools and new technology to safely overcome the challenges in these operations. Due to the sensitivity and potential impact on the environment, the industry is striving to homogenize the design and acceptance criteria. The API 17G is the industry standard for offshore intervention operations. According to the standard, design verification is performed using finite element analysis (FEA). The standard provides three sets of criteria for determining capacities that adopt the methodologies from ASME Boiler Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC) Section VIII, Div. 3. The objective of this study is to evaluate tension, pressure, and bending moment capacities per the elastic-plastic analysis methodologies outlined in API 17G for a subsea intervention system connector. The global and local failure capacities are presented for yielding load, plastic collapse, and 2% strain methods. Results indicate that the plastic collapse method is the most conservative approach for evaluating the global capacity of the connector.