Tapan Sen (KBR) - Tuesday 23rd March, 5.30pm at UCL

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Dr Tapan K. Sen (KBR - an engineering and construction company) will be giving a seminar at UCL on:

Tuesday 23rd March at 5.30pm

Venue: Chadwick Building, room 218 (2nd floor) - see map: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/maps/ucl-maps/map2_low_res

A biography for Tapan can be found here: About the speaker

Title: “A Design Approach for an Offshore pipeline on an Escarpment In a Seismically Active Zone”

Abstract:

A large number of offshore developments are being considered and are in progress in seismically active regions. A new development in the seismically active Caspian Sea region, features installing several subsea water injection lines from an existing jacket to a remote manifold several kilometres away; the primary intent being to enhance the existing production and hence its importance from the perspective of increased revenue.

The water depth at the jacket is approx 160m with a gently sloping seabed and an escarpment which is encountered 400m away. The pipeline is laid over the escarpment and connects to a manifold 4 km away where the water depth is 280m.The entire area is seismically active and hence the concern about the integrity of the water injection lines and facilities in the event of a seismic event.

A literature survey reveals that very few engineering studies of pipelines on escarpments prone to seismic hazards have been reported.

This paper reports on the analyses carried out for the soil profile and pipeline to establish loads for a separate anchor installed at a point away from the jacket; the emphasis being to assess the engineering requirements to protect the jacket from the generated loads from the pipeline due to a major seismic event.

The soil is predominantly calcareous clay to depth of 50 m approximately. The clays are normally consolidated or slightly over consolidated. Among the potential triggering mechanism for submarine slides, a strong earthquake is believed to be the most relevant mechanism of initiating a major event in the study area. Large down-slope displacements could be induced by a strong earthquake

This will be preceded by a short introduction damaging effects of earthquakes and some case studies on Soil Amplification and Effects of Local Site Conditions