Pipelines and Soil Mechanics

Gain focused skills in the design and operation of offshore pipelines.

Develop your understanding of the engineering and scientific concepts that underpin the selection of materials, pipeline size, safe installation and operation, and environmental impact.

Learn from industry and academic experts, with a university at the forefront of teaching and professional training for ambitious engineers in global oil and gas.

Advance your career, whether you’re a graduate engineer working in the offshore industry or looking to move into it. Access our expertise and support wherever you’re based, with part-time hours to fit around your existing commitments.

What will I study?

You’ll study the engineering and scientific concepts that underpin the selection of material and size of seabed pipelines, safe installation and operation, and environmental impact.

You’ll develop your knowledge of materials engineering and selection, and failure and degradation issues in a subsea environment, including life-cycle analysis.

You’ll also examine reasons for failure, and how failure analysis is applied in the design process.

Topics covered on your course include:

• Overview of pipeline design, including commercial and environmental considerations, national and international design codes, and technological challenges.
• Site investigation and pipeline routing, including soil classification, site survey and preparation, Health and Safety Executive (HSE) requirements, human and environmental factors.
• Design based on stress analysis.
• Design against failure, including buckling and collapse.
• Pipeline on-bottom stability, hydrodynamic loads on pipelines, pipeline-soil interaction response and modelling, pipeline seabed spanning response and evaluation.
• External corrosion of pipelines and its prevention.
• Pipeline ancillary equipment design, including PLEMs, protection devices, etc.
• Pipeline installation methods and installation analysis techniques.

Throughout the course you’ll develop expertise in the use of pipeline design standards (eg, BSPD8010 and DNV-OS-F101).

And you’ll become proficient in using industry-standard software, with the huge advantage this brings when you step into a real-life industry project as a professional pipeline engineer.