Study on the effect of corrosion defects on VIV behavior of marine pipe using a new defective pipe element

Abstract After long-term service in deep ocean, pipelines are usually suffered from corrosions, which may greatly influence the Vortex-Induced Vibration (VIV) behavior of pipes. Thus, we investigate the VIV of defective pipelines. The geometric nonlinearity due to large deformation of pipes and nonlinearity in vortex-induced force are simulated. This nonlinear vibration system is simulated with finite element method and solved by direct integration method with incremental algorithm. Two kinds of defects, corrosion pits and volumetric flaws, and their effects of depth and range on VIV responses are investigated. A new finite element is developed to simulate corrosion pits. Defects are found to aggravate VIV displacement response only if environmental flow rate is less than resonance flow rate. As the defect depth grows, the stress responses increase, however, the increase of the defect range reduces the stress response at corroded part. The volumetric flaws affect VIV response stronger than the corrosion pits.