Two-Phase Model for Simulating Current-Induced Scour Beneath Subsea Pipelines at Different Initial Elevations

Abstract

When a subsea pipeline is laid on an uneven seabed, the pipeline can have an initial elevation, potentially compromising its on-bottom stability; scouring due to flow conditions around the pipe can further exacerbate the problem. We assess the capability of the two-phase Eulerian-Eulerian OpenFOAM solver, twoPhaseEulerFoam, in terms of predicting the equilibrium scour depth beneath a pipe at different initial elevations under a steady current for the live bed condition. The predictions were found to be in good agreement with published experimental and numerical results; however, similar to a recent study involving another two-phase Eulerian-Eulerian model, the scour time scale was under-predicted. The predicted equilibrium scour depth was seen to decrease with an increase in the initial pipe elevation. The numerical results were also compared to predictions that were made using previous empirical equations. The most comprehensive equation to date showed a good agreement with the present numerical results. We conclude that this open-source solver, twoPhaseEulerFoam, can be used to predict the equilibrium scour depth beneath subsea pipelines, with short computation times and negligible mesh dependency.