A shell-dynamics model for marine pipelines of large suspended length

The present investigations introduce the shell-finite element discretization for the dynamics of slender marine pipelines. A long catenary pipeline, corresponding to a particular Steel Catenary Riser (SCR), is investigated under long-standing cyclic loading. The long structure is divided into smaller tubular parts which are discretized with 8-node planar shell elements. The transient analysis of each part is carried out by the implicit time integration scheme, within a Finite Elements (FE) solver. The time varying external loads and boundary conditions on each part are the results of a prior solution of an integrated line-dynamics model. The celebrated FE approximation can produce a more detailed stress distribution along the structural surface than the simplistic \"line-dynamics\" approach.