Numerical investigation of electro-kinetic effect on pipe-soil interaction

The soft soil content and the high pressure and high temperature (HP/HT) of the operating fliud significantly account for the displacement of subsea pipelines. The abiltiy of the pipeline to resist displacement depents on the soil strength. Increasing the pipe-soil resistance will significantly reduced the pipeline displacement. One method used to increase soil shear strength is the Electro-kinetic (EK) process. This is applied to increase strength of onshore and offshore soil foundations. This paper uses ABAQUS software tool to investigate EK effect on axial displacement of pipeline due to pipe-soil interaction. Studies on both EK treated soil and non-EK treated soil are conducted and compared. Electro-osmosis using the varous flow process is demonstrated and effectively validated. The paper also demontrated the dynamic process due to axial pulling of the pipeline. The resistance developed for both conditions were determined and compared. Due to axial pulling of the pipeline from the soil, the present numerical results shows a remarkable increase of over 100% in frictional resistance to pipeline displacement.