Numerical study of electro-osmotic consolidation of soft clay for pipeline stability

Subsea pipelines are laid directly on seabed with further constraining measures to stabilise it against adverse effect of axial walking, upheaval buckling and lateral buckling. Costly mitigating measures are being employed and the need for further investigation to explore more option is considered. Stability of soil depends on the soil strength. Increasing the soil strength has been identified as a possible mitigation against pipeline displacement. Electro-osmotic consolidation process is currently being employed to increase soil strength around offshore and onshore structures, but the effect on pipe-soil interaction has not been fully investigated. This aspect received no attention on numerical model or detail experiment in this regard. The present study numerically investigates the effect of pipe-soil interaction using capabilities of commercial ABAQUS finite element software tool on both Electro-Kinetic (EK) treated and untreated soil to determine their behaviours. Results from this study when compared with non-EK treated soil, indicates remarkable developments, as the force required to displace pipeline increases significantly due to EK treatment.