Subsea equipment in oil and gas has its specifial design considerations. First, the metal parts need to be protected from seawater corrosion and thus
the material selection is critical. Second, external pressure is a factor for design consideration, especially in deep water. Third, the load conditions are
different, e.g., the wave loads. Other considerations include deployment impact for large structure, foundation design, and etc. These additional factors
make the design more complex and thus require advanced analysis.
Subsea Manifold and Piping System
Subsea manifold is critical to provide flowline to safely gather produced fluis and/or distribute injected fluids suchas gas, water or chemicals.
Except the normal pipe design consideration, subsea piping system need additional consideration, such as, free span requirment, on bottom stability, cathodic protection (CP), and CP induced hydrogen
stress crack. ASME B31, ASME BPVC VIII, DNV-OS-F101, API 17P, and ISO 13628-15 are the relative codes for subsea piping system design.
Subsea Structure
Subsea structures have similar design requirements as for topside structures, except the design load might be different. The design of subsea structure includes material selection,
joint design, welding requirment, and type and externt of inspection. API RP 2A and ISO 19902 provides guidance for subsea structure design.
Wellhead and Completion Tools
Wellhead is a complex equipment which provides the structural and pressure-containing interface for the drilling and production equipment.
The primary components of a wellhead system include: casing head, casing spools, casing hangers, packoff seals, test plugs, mudline suspension systems, tubing heads,
tubing handers, and adapter. FEA has been applied to design most of the components, expecially for HPHT conditions. API 6A,
ISO 10423, API 17D provides design requirment for wellhead.
Other Subsea Equipment
Design and analysis of other subsea equipment, such as, subsea umbilicals, control system, connectors, and etc, also require FEA to obtain accurate stress.
Tau Engineering provides design and analysis services to subsea equipment
based on customers' requirment.
