Flexible Risers in Deepwater Production – Reliability Concerns
Claudio Paschoa
October 28, 2010
Flexible risers are being extensively used worldwide for deepwater O&G extraction, offering many advantages over rigid risers. However concerns still exist about the overall safety of the system, especially concerning failures leading to hydrocarbon leaks in the ocean environment.The flexible risers being used in deepwater are designed to work for a period of around 20 to 30 years, which is the expected lifetime of an O&G field. A flexible riser failure could happen due to a number of reasons, such as hostile environmental hazards and material fatigue and if the failure is catastrophic, it could lead to high economic and environmental consequences. Flexible risers comprise multiple layers, and the main layers of concerns are the tensile armor layers which exist to withstand tension loads.