The Steel Tube Umbilical (STU) forms an integral part of the production line in the offshore oil and gas industry.
As production lines reach the end of their design life, an increasing number of STU will require decommissioning. To facilitate this, suitable recovery tools will be required to grasp and manipulate the STU during the decommissioning operation. Recovery tools will need to be designed to impart a radial force to engage the conduit filler sections onto the steel tubes with sufficient contact pressure to support the self-weight of the STU.
AgileTek Engineering has developed a methodology to calculate the radial crush load which combines both two-dimensional and three-dimensional approaches.
