On Lateral Buckling Failure of Armour Wires in Flexible Pipes

This paper introduces the concept of lateral buckling of tensile armour wires in flexible pipes as a failure mode. This phenomenon is governed by large deflections and is therefore highly non-linear. A model for prediction of the wire equilibrium state within the pipe wall based on force equilibrium in curved beams and curvature expressions derived from differential geometry is presented. On this basis, a model of the global equilibrium state of the armour layers in flexible pipes is proposed. Furthermore, it is demonstrated how this model can be used for lateral buckling prediction. Obtained results are compared with experiments.