Pipelay in Abaqus

[sjonson]

I am trying to lay a pipe onto a surface with undulations. My steps are as follows: 1) apply tension to the pipeline, 2) lower one end of the pipeline while keeping tension, 3) constrain the lowered end, 3) lower the last end of the pipeline, etc....

The analysis run fails to converge on the second step. I've tried changing my mesh density of the seabed relative to the pipeline as well as changing the vertical stiffness of the pipeline. It all fails to work. Does anybody have experience with sort of work and know trouble shooting steps. I've done this successfully before, but the method I used previously does not seem to work for this case.

I appreciate your help.

 

[ss770640]

Hi Sj

Why not just use Orcaflex to analyse this problem? I use this program daily for pipelay analysis. It also allows you to change the seabed parameters although i will admit it does not model the interaction of pipe/seabed well.

I am new at Abaqus but have an upcoming tutorial at work soon so maybe i will draw something from that.

PS: are you sure your model is constrained rigidly i.e. boundary conditions and not essentially rotating in free space?