Static displacement and elastic buckling characteristics of structural pipe-in-pipe cross-sections

Structural pipe-in-pipe cross-sections have significant potential for application in offshore oil and gas production systems because of their property that combines insulation performance with structural strength in an integrated way. Such cross-sections comprise inner and outer thin walled pipes with the annulus between them fully filled by a selectable thick filler material to impart an appropriate combination of properties. Structural pipe-in-pipe cross-sections can exhibit several different collapse mechanisms and the basis of the preferential occurrence of one over others is of interest. This paper presents an elastic analyses of a structural pipe-in-pipe cross-section when subjected to external hydrostatic pressure. It formulates and solves the static and elastic buckling problem using the variational principle of minimum potential energy. The paper also investigates a simplified formulation of the problem where the outer pipe and its contact with the filler material is considered as a 'pipe on an elastic foundation'. Results are presented to show the variation of elastic buckling pressure with the relative elastic modulus of the filler and pipe materials, the filler thickness and the thicknesses of the inner and outer pipes. The range of applicability of the simplified 'pipe on an elastic foundation' analysis is also presented. A brief review of the types of materials that could be used as the filler is combined with the results of the analysis to draw conclusions about elastic buckling behaviour of structural pipe-in-pipe cross-sections.