J. Marine Sci. Appl.

(2015) 14: 83-92

DOI: 10.1007/s11804-015-1290-1

Prediction of Scour Depth around

Offshore Pipelines in the South China Sea
Yonggang Cao1, 2*, Yuchuan Bai1, Junqin Wang3, Shizhi Liao2 and Dong Xu1
1. State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic Engineering Simulation and Safety, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
2. South China Sea Marine Engineering Surveying Center, State Oceanic Administration, Guangzhou 510300, China
3. China National Offshore Oil Corporation General Research Institute, Beijing 100027, China

Abstract: Scour depth prediction of offshore pipelines is of great
significance to the design and construction of the submarine
pipeline projects. In this paper, based on the CFD software package
FLUENT and User Defined Function (UDF), an Eulerian
two-phase model, which includes an Euler-Euler coupled model for
water and sediment phases, and a turbulent model for the fluid
phase, is adopted to predict the scour depth around pipelines. The
model is verified by observation data obtained from laboratory
experiments. On the basis of the simulations, the factors affecting
the scour depth, including the effects of incipient velocity, pipe
diameter and sediment particle size and so on, were investigated.
Meanwhile, according to formulas of incipient velocity of various
sediments, approximate calculation on theoretical scour depths is
developed for pipelines of seven stations in the South China Sea,
where engineering application information is available.
Keywords: pipeline; offshore pipelines; sediment; scour depth;
numerical simulation; theoretical calculation; South China Sea;
Article ID: 1671-9433(2015)01-0083-10
1 Introduction1
Local scour around offshore pipelines has significant
effect on the stability of structure. Understanding the
scouring processes and predicting the scour around pipelines
are important in the design of offshore pipelines
(Whitehouse, 1998). Because of the highly variable marine
environment caused by waves, tidal and littoral currents,
variability of sediments, etc., the scour around offshore
pipelines is difficult to predict.
Over the last three decades, more and more numerical
models for scour prediction have been developed. Based on
the potential flow theory (Hansen et al., 1986; Mao, 1986),
k-ε model (Leeuwenstein and Wind, 1984), morphological
model (Li and Cheng, 2000), and smagorinsky subgrid scale
Received date: 2013-11-20.
Accepted date: 2014-11-19.
Foundation item: Supported by the State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic
Engineering Simulation and Safety (Grant No. HESS-1401), the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51279124), the Marine
Science and Technology Foundation of South China Sea Branch, State
Oceanic Administration (Grant No. 1417), and the National High
Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant No.
2008AA09A401).
*Corresponding author Email: ygangc@163.com
© Harbin Engineering University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015
(SGS) model (Liang et al., 2005) were put forward. Dey and
Singh (2007) developed a semi-theoretical model for the
computation of maximum clear-water scour depth that
occurs below the underwater pipelines in uniform sediments
under steady flows. Two-phase models considering the
dynamics of particle and fluid phases as well as its
interactions have been employed for sediment transport
calculations in the framework of Navier-Stokes equations. In
recent years, Zhao and Cheng (2008) solved the
Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations and the
transport equation for suspended sediment concentration by
using a finite element method. The bed scour profile is
determined through solving sediment mass conservation
equation. The numerical model is validated against
experimental data available in literature on scour below a
single pipeline. Yang et al. (2008) established the similarity
rules for modeling local scour under the submarine pipeline
by means of dimensional analytical method, and then
modeled the physical phenomenon of the local scour of the
pipeline in a unidirectional flow flume. Zhang et al. (2009)
analyzed the current field and the dimensionless shear
stresses of the top and the bottom of the pipeline on the bed.
The present numerical experiments (Zhao and Fernando,
2007; Zhao and Cheng, 2010) show that water depth has
weak effect on the scour depth. However, it does affect the
time scale of the scour. The shallower the water depth is, the
less time it requires to reach the equilibrium state of scour.
And so, it is intended to narrow the scope of study in this
numerical simulation.
In order to take insight into the mechanism of pipeline
erosions, it needs to analyze the underflow and the sediment
motions around the pipelines. In the present study, the main
work is to investigate the erosion of offshore pipeline in
shallow water environments. Seabed erosion and the action
of currents have a significant influence on the structural
stabilities and erosion of the pipelines. An Eulerian
two-phase model is employed to simulate the scour around
pipelines. The aim is to evaluate the model’s efficacy using
available benchmark data and, if successful, to use the
model to educe important information on flow dynamics,
which could not be conveniently obtained with available
laboratory techniques, especially. Meanwhile, based on
84 Yonggang Cao, et al. Prediction of Scour Depth around Offshore Pipelines in the South China Sea

formulas of incipient velocity of sediments, approximate s  4 s  s d s g 0, ss (1  ess )( s π)1/ 2 3 (6)

calculation on theoretical scour depths are put forward for
seven stations in the South China Sea, which is available for
engineering application information. According to the
results of previous studies (Zhao and Fernando, 2007; Wei
and Ye, 2008; Tan et al., 2010; Yang et al., 2013), they can
be further applied to the actual process of engineering.
2 Numerical model
The Eulerian multiphase flow model is capable of
simulating multiple phase flow separation and interactions.
Under the Eulerian multiphase flow framework, the flow is
described as interacting continuum media with its volume
fractions denoted by  t ( t  w, s ). The volume fraction is
defined as the space ratio occupied by each phase. The laws
of conservation of mass and momentum are satisfied by
each phase, respectively. Coupling among phases is
achieved through pressure and interphase exchange
coefficients. A symmetric drag model is employed to
describe the interaction between phases.
2.1 Governing equations
The continuity equation
 In dense flows at low shearing rate, where the volume
 t  t      t  t vt   0
t
where t  w, s and  w   s  1 ,  w , s are the volume
fractions for water and sediment and  w ,  s are the
physical densities of water and sediment, respectively.
Momentum equations for water-water and water-sediment
interactions

 w  w v w      w  w v w v w  
t
 wp     w   w  w g  K sw (vs  vw )

 s  s v s      s  s v s v s  
t
 sp  ps     s   s  s g  K ws (vw  vs )
Here d s is the diameter of sediment and ess is a
restitution coefficient. g 0, ss  [1  ( s  s ,max )1/3 ]1 is a radial
distribution function defined as the probability of a particle
touching another particle. The maximum value of the
sediment volume fraction is  s ,max  0.63 .  s is granular
temperature proportional to the kinetic energy of the
fluctuating particle motion.
In Eq. (5),  w is shear viscosity of water. The collisional
and kinetic parts, and the optional frictional part, are added
to give the sediments shear viscosity
 s   s ,col   s ,kin   s ,fr (7)
where the collisional part of the shear viscosity is modeled
as
 s ,col  0.8 s  s d s g 0, ss (1  ess )( s π)1/ 2 (8)
The expression for the kinetic part is
 s ,kin 
(9)
 s d s  s  s π [1  0.4(1  ess )(3ess  1) s g 0, ss ]  6(3  ess ) 
(1)
fraction of the secondary phase, namely sediment phase,
approaches its packing limit, the formation of the stress is
mainly due to friction between particles. The frictional
viscosity can be estimated by
 s ,fr  0.5Ps sin  I2D (10)
Here the sediment pressure:
Ps   s  s s  2  s (1  ess ) s2 g 0, ss s
(2)
and  is the angle of internal friction, I 2D is the second
invariant of the deviatoric stress tensor.
The water-sediment exchange coefficient has the form
(3)
K sw  K ws  0.75 s w  wCD ( Res Vr , s ) vs  vw Vr2, s d s  (11)

where v w , v s are the velocities of water and sediment, p where drag coefficient CD  (0.63  4.8 Res Vr , s ) 2 ,
is the pressure shared by the two phases, and g is the relative Reynolds number between water and sediment
acceleration due to gravity. Res   w d s v s  v w  w . The terminal velocity correlation
Stress tensor for the sediment phase is given by for the sediment phase

 s   s  s (v s  v st )   s (s  2 s 3)  v s I (4) Vr , s 

0.5( A  0.06 Res  (0.06 Res )2  0.12 Res (2 B  A)  A2 )
Stress tensor for the water phase is given by
with A   w4.14 and B  0.8 w1.28 for  w  0.85 , and
 w   w  w (v w  v ws ) (5) B   w2.65 for  w  0.85 .

where I is an identity tensor. The sediment bulk viscosity 2.2 k-ε mixture turbulence model
accounts for the resistance of the granular particles to The k and  equations for the turbulence flow are as
compression and expansion, and it has the following form: follows:
Journal of Marine Science and Application (2015) 14: 83-92 85

 t , m The transfer of the kinetic energy of random fluctuations

( m k )    ( mvm k )    ( k )  Gk , m   m (12) in particle velocity from the sediment phase to the fluid
t k
 phase is represented by ws :
(  m )    (  m vm ) 
t ws  3k ws s (21)
(13)
t , m 
(  )  (C1 Gk , m  C2  m )
k k 2.4 Numerical methods and boundary conditions
For Eulerian multiphase model, the governing equations
where the mixture density  m and velocity vm are were solved using phase-coupled SIMPLE scheme for
computed from pressure-velocity decoupling. The first-order upwind
discretization scheme was adopted for allusion of final
m   w w   s s (14) results to volume fraction; the second-order upwind
v m   w  w v w   s  s v s   w  w   s  s  (15) discretization scheme was adopted for the contraposed
momentum, turbulent kinetic energy and dissipation rate.
The turbulent viscosity t , m is computed from The dimensions of the computational domain are shown
in Fig. 1. X is the streamwise direction, Y is the cross-stream
k2
 t , m   mC  (16) direction and Dpipe (Diameter of the pipe) is the thickness of
 the sand layer. The water depth is dependent on Dpipe.
The production of turbulence kinetic energy Gk , m is According to Mao’s test (Mao, 1986), the influence of the
pipe on the flow was taken into account and 4Dpipe was
computed from
covered in the vertical direction, 5Dpipe and 15Dpipe from the
Gk , m   k , m (v m   vm  ) : vm
T
(17) center of the pipe for the inlet and outlet boundaries,
respectively. In the beginning of the simulation, a sinusoidal
where C1  1.44, C2  1.92, C3  1.2,  k  1.0 and profile with perturbation of amplitude 0.1Dpipe was adopted.
   1.3. The two-phase model configuration is described in Section
2.1–2.3 to simulate the real engineering conditions.
2.3 Transport equation for granular temperature
The granular temperature for the sediment phase is
proportional to the kinetic energy of the random motion of
particles. The transport equation derived from kinetic theory
takes the form:
3  Fig. 1 Computational domain and phase configuration
[ (  s s s )    (  s s v s s )] 
2 t
n
(18) A two-dimensional grid with 8 086 nodes and 7 869
( ps I   s ) : v s    (ks  s )   s  ws  X i elements was used. The grid consists of two zones, namely
i 1
the water and the sediment zones. Non-uniform grid was
adopted. During the simulations, the time step size was
where the term ( ps I   s ) : v s represents the generation chosen based on the number of iterations per time step,
of energy by the sediment stress tensor, ks  s is the which was considered 40 to obtain satisfactory results. The
diffusion of energy ( ks is the diffusion coefficient),  s flow and turbulence equations were solved with a
non-dimensional time-step dt = 0.001–0.1 s, and the volume
is the collisional dissipation of energy, ws is the energy
fraction adopted dt = 0.01–0.1 s. Simulations showed that
exchange between the water phase and the sediment phase. this time-step is small enough to ensure the solutions, and
ks  s describes the diffusive flux of granular energy, are independent on time-steps.
where ks is given by The steps for our simulation can be summarized as
follows:
15d s  s s  s π 12 1) Generate the grid.
ks  [1   2  4  3 s g 0, ss 
4  41  33  5 2) Use the mixture turbulence model in the FLUENT
(19)
16 solver to calculate the fully developed velocity and
 41  33  s g 0, ss ] turbulence for the fluid phase.
15π
3) Use the Eulerian two-phase model in the FLUENT
here   1  ess  2 ,  s represents the energy dissipation solver to calculate the solid-fluid interactions as well as the
rate within the sediment phase due to collisions between velocity of solid phase, using fully developed velocity from
particles. step 2) as the input.
The entire calculation process is controlled by an UDF
 s  12(1  ess2 ) g 0, ss  s s2 s3/ 2  d s π  (20) (user defined function). The procedure was repeated until
86 Yonggang Cao, et al. Prediction of Scour Depth around Offshore Pipelines in the South China Sea

the equilibrium state of scour was reached. 3.1 Zhang’s formula (Zhang, 2007)
The boundary conditions were defined as 1/ 2
h  s   
m s
d1
u*  y U c  C1    gd  C2   g  ha  h   (23)
u( y)  u  1  2.3lg  ; v( y )  0 (22) d   d 
 h
where,
1
where the mean velocity u  R1/ 6 RJ , the friction 1  2 K 3a3
1/ 2
 , C  K 4 a4 , C  1.34 ,
n C1    2 1
1  m  a m  K1CD a1  K 2CL a2  K 3a3
velocity is evaluated as u*  gRJ , the von Kármán
C2=0.000 004 96, s=0.72, m=0.14 are constants determined
constant is  =0.4, the roughness coefficient n=0.022 5, g
by the measured data, when d=1 mm, the unit of d and d1 are
is the acceleration of gravity, R is the hydraulic radius, h is
the same, so
the water depth, pipeline surfaces are assumed to be rough.
1/ 2
h
0.14
 s   10  h 
2.5 Simulation setup U c    17.6  d  0.000000605 d 0.72  (24)
Fig. 2 shows the arrangement of position in the South d   
China Sea in a real project. Flow characteristics for all of the
3.2 Tang’s formula (Tang, 1963)
stations listed in Table 1 were studied. The data obtained
from in-site measurements were used for numerical 1/ 2
1  h   s      C 
m n

simulations. The simulation results were applied in the U c  C1     gd     (25)

engineering planning. 1 m  d      c   d 

1
1  2 K 3a3  2, K 4 c
where, C1    C .
a  K1CD a1  K 2CL a2 
m
K 3a3
According to the measured data, C1=1.79, C=8.885×10-5 N/m,
n=10, in nature rivers, m=1/6 and for flat beds,
0.06
1 d
m   .
4.7  h 

3.3 Dou’s formula (Dou, 1999)

By considering the characteristics of the instantaneous
velocity, Dou (1999) proposed the formula
1/ 2
Fig. 2 Position of key stations  s   gh   k 
ubc  1.09  gd  0.19   (26)
Table 1 Flow characteristics of the key stations    d 

Station h/m h'/m u'/(m·s–1) d50/mm Dpipe/m where ubc is the mean critical velocity. Utilizing the
u y 
 5.75lg  30.2
A2 100.4 1.29 0.650 0.247 0.838 8
logarithmic velocity formula,  ,
A3 173.1 1.445 0.400 0.146 0.845 2 U*  Ks 
25 77.3 13.5 0.500 0.060 0.838 8 where U * is the friction velocity, K s is the channel

28 54.5 6.6 0.450 0.039 0.858 8

roughness,  a adjustable coefficient,   f  K s   ,
  11.6 / U is the viscous sublayer thickness of a
29 54.5 6.6 0.450 0.356 0.858 8
hydraulically smooth bed. In this case,  =0.213×10-4 cm.
A1817 34 1.5 0.493 0.430 0.962 0
Therefore
A1607 28 1.9 0.540 0.009 0.962 0
12
h  s   gh   k 
U c  0.74  lg 11   gd  0.19  (27)
3 Theoretical analysis  Ks   d 

The flow velocity will be changed when the pipeline is
placed on the seabed. When the flow velocity is greater than
erosion threshold, namely the incipient velocity, local scour
will occur. Therefore, incipient velocity should be obtained
firstly by comparing the simulation results against classical
formulas.
3.4 Wang and Bai’s formula (Wang and Shen, 1985;
Jiang et al., 2001)
During the incipient motion of fine sand, particles are
submerged within laminar boundary, whose velocity has a
linear distribution, illustrated as Fig. 3.
Journal of Marine Science and Application (2015) 14: 83-92 87

where R*  u* D v . It can be seen that Eqs. (35) and (36)

share the same form. The curve is an extension of Shields’
curve. In engineering practice, the incipient velocity is often
used for convenience in application. In two-dimensional
turbulent flow, the velocity distribution above the smooth
bed is

uc  5.75u*c lg(3.62 hcu*c  w ) (37)

where uc is the incipient velocity, hc is the water depth.

By substituting Eq. (34) into Eq. (37), with other conditions
Fig. 3 Schematic diagram of fine sand and the velocity
distribution u*c   c  w , g = 981 cm/s2, γs= 2.65 g/cm3,  w = 0.01 cm2/s,

du 1
ud  (28) w  g·s2/cm4, and d = d50(cm), deriving
2 ' 981

where ud is the velocity at a water depth Z =d/2, d is the uc  57.5  104  d50
1/ 2
lg(3.62  103 4  d50
1/ 2
hc ) (38)
sediment grain size; u is the velocity at a water depth at 3.5 Sha’s formula (Sha, 1965)
Z   ' ,  ' is the laminar boundary thickness
 0.7   4
11.6 w U c  H 0.2  1.1   0.43  d 0.75 (39)
'  (29) d
u*
where  =0.40.
here,  w is the water viscosity, u* is the friction
3.6 Herbich’s formula (Herbich, 1981)
coefficient at the bottom. Combine the solution into Eqs. (28)
If the flow velocity near the pipeline is large enough to
and (29), and u '  11.6u* , yielding cause erosion, then the sediment will be gradually corroded
d 2 as shown in Fig. 4.
ud  u* (30)
2 w

According to Sha (1965), the relation between ud 0

and    m   is

ud  0.55  108  0 (31)

where  is the bed porosity,  m is the porosity limit of

sediment concentration, Fig. 4 Schematic diagram of the maximum scour depth
(R=pipe radius, H=scour depth from the center of
 m  1  Cm  0.245  0.222lgd50 (32) the pipe)
The maximum scour depth is proposed by Chao and
where Cm  0.755  0.222lgd50 .  0 is the settling velocity
Hennessy (1972). This method provides an
of a single sediment particle in still water order-of-magnitude estimation of the possible scour hole
g s depth. The subsurface current is assumed to flow
 0  0.564 (  1)d 2 (33) perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the pipeline. Based
w w
on the two-dimensional potential flow theory and the
Combine the solution into Eqs. (31), (32) and (33), the assumptions, the discharge through the scour hole is
critical drag resistance for fine sand can be derived as
R2 
q  u0  H  , when H  R (40)
 c  0.062  10 8 
( s   w )d (34)  2 H  R 

If K*  0.062  108  , Eq. (34) becomes where u0 is the free stream velocity at the top of the pipe.
When H  R , the average jet velocity is
 c  K* ( s   w )d (35)
q  2  H R 2   H R   1 
Shields’ critical stress formula uavg   u0   (41)
H R  2  H R   3 H R   1
2

 c  f ( R*)( s   ) D (36)
Once the flow velocity inside the scour hole is greater
88 Yonggang Cao, et al. Prediction of Scour Depth around Offshore Pipelines in the South China Sea

than the outside, erosion phenomenon appeared. As the 2) Station A3:

expansion continues at erosion section, erosion will finally
f f  1.358e  20  R n 3   7.471e  014  R n 2 
reach the quasi-equilibrium state. In the eroded trench, the (45)
boundary shear stress was calculated by the conditions 1.474e  007  R n  0.08288
assumed by Chao and Hennessy (1972). The friction
3) Station 25:
coefficient f f can be estimated according to the Reynolds
number defined by Lovera and Kennedy (1969) f f   3.547e 20  R n 3   3.196e  013 R n 2 
(46)
u avg  H  R 
 9.609e  7  R n  0.949
Rn  (42)
 4) Station 28:
where  is the kinematic viscosity of seawater. The
f f  1.269e  20  R n 3  1.377e  013 R n 2 
roughness parameter is defined as Rh / D50  10 2 , where (47)
 5.041e  007  R n  0.6061
R h is the hydrodynamic radius approximated as H  R .
The friction factor ff is determined from Fig. 5 for 5) Station 29:

different stations. Once the friction factor f f is known, the f f   3.257e  19  R n 3   3.986e  013 R n 2 
(48)
boundary stress can be calculated by the method proposed 1.9e  007  R n  0.01219
by Streeter (1963)
6) Station A1817:
f f  uavg
2
b  (43) f f   3.476e  19  R n 3   4.264e  013 R n 2 
8 (49)
1.217e  007  R n  0.02581
When the maximum erosion is reached,  b   c , where  c
H and H-R can be solved by combining the above
is the critical traction stress that erodes the seabed.
equations simultaneously. The A1607 station’s curve is
Table 2 The critical drag force for different sand grain sizes beyond the scope of the graphics, therefore additional
calculations are conducted, and the negative results are
D50/mm τc/(Lb/ft2) D50/mm τc/(Lb/ft2)
taken for scour depth to maintain numerical consistency.
0.05 0.016 1 0.50 0.021 5
0.08 0.016 2 0.75 0.026 6 3.7 Shields’ parameter
Shields’ parameter was used to determine the incipient
0.10 0.016 4 1 0.031 6
motion of the sediment. After the Shields’ parameter   c
0.13 0.016 6 2 0.051 3
bedload, then the transport would occur. Four depths have
0.25 0.017 2 4 0.089 0
been considered in the article, namely the simulated water
depth, actual water depth in fresh water, and the simulated
water depth, actual water depth in sea water, respectively.
Through estimation, the conclusions are drawn that all of
actual Shields’ parameters are larger than the critical
Shields’ parameters in the context of simulated water depth
of fresh water, actual water depth of fresh water, simulated
sea water depth of sea water, and actual water depth of sea
water. Sediment erosion will occur.

4 Results and discussion

Fig. 5 Prediction chart of friction coefficient in alluvial
channel of flat ocean current
According to different pipe diameters and particle sizes,
the relation between f f and Rn can be known by
interpolation and fitting according to the friction coefficient
predicted through the Table 2 and the Fig. 5. After solving
the equations, the results are performed as follows:
1) Station A2:
f f   3.417e  20  R n 3   8.1e  014  R n2 
(44)
 8.693e  008  R n  0.0122
The scour calculations presented here are for the case
with a cylinder of D = 0.1 m, the sand particle with d =
0.36 mm, Shields’ parameter θ = 0.048 according to
experiment by Mao (1986). Experimental results (Fig. 6)
were obtained by profiles measured, for the same
conditions about clear-water scour case, simulated scour
depth results match to experiment results. It provides
important information for the improvement and
optimization of the pipeline design. Although the decay of
turbulence due to energy releasing process and the motion
of particles tends to pile up sand behind the pile, the
current situation is difficult to control the mound owing to
Journal of Marine Science and Application (2015) 14: 83-92
particles will be accumulated at the rear of the tank. In
view of these characteristics, to some scour development
along with pipelines, the time is unsuitable between the
predictions and the experiments.
(a) t =10 min
(b) t =30 min
(c) t =100 min
Fig. 6 Bed profiles during pipeline scour
4.1 Scour simulation
The current and wave-induced flow scouring around the
submarine pipelines greatly endangers engineering safety.
Meanwhile, the pipeline will also cause local hydrodynamic
environment changes. The simulation results showed that for
small initial depth of submarine pipeline, considering only
unidirectional currents caused by local scour, is usually
divided into four phases, suspended pipeline, gap scour,
wakefield scour and equilibrium scour. The location of
maximum scour depth is at the downstream side of the pipe
under the condition of limit equilibrium scour. Along with
the narrowing of the initial gap between the pipeline and
sand bed, equilibrium scour depth increases. Around the
pipeline, strong wakes and vortexes usually occur, which
cause local non-equilibrium sediment transport, resulting in
even stronger scour around the pipeline. For the sea area
with relatively deep water, tidal flow is thought to be the
main factor that induces local scour.
The single-phase velocity field of the flow was calculated
with an updated bed form. Based on the typical flow (Fig. 7),
the final results can be obtained gradually. Through
calculation and dynamic adjustment of the distribution
factor for sediment concentrations, more accurate
suspended-load flow change can be obtained. Only those
that are really taken into account can be estimate, so the
scour depth in the simulation is constrained by the attention
89
span. Fig. 8 presents the variation of bed profiles (stations
from A2 to A1607) in the two-phase flow simulation. As
mentioned, the volume fraction of sediment contour  s ≈
0.5 was chosen as the bed profiles by using Tecplot software
for post processing.
(a) Vector field
(b) Sediment concentration
Fig. 7 Typical flow field and sediment concentration
To optimize the problem of scour, the multiple “2 stages”
optimization method was put forward. The multiphase flow
problem was solved by trying to occupy a space water
condition between seabed and pipeline. However, it must be
ensured that the flow is fully developed through the initial
calculation of the flow field to update the bed and so on.
When the maximum change of scour depth along the
sediment-water interface becomes smaller and smaller, more
optimized results will be obtained. The flow velocity in front
of the pipeline decreases due to the existence of the pipeline,
which results in higher velocity around the pipeline,
especially at the bottom of seabed. If the flow velocity of
rising tide is bigger than the incipient velocity of sediment,
the sediment particles will eject rapidly away from the bed
surface in the form of the bed load and part of the suspended
load. Energy dissipates during this process in terms of the
distance from the pipeline. More and more sediment
particles are deposited to form a mound due to the
concentration of the bed in motion. The point to note is that
calculations must satisfy the laws of incipient motion for
sediment. The results showed familiarity with the theories
about the development mechanism of scour within a
reasonable control range. In the next place, vertical section
increases gradually with the increase of scour depth, local
velocity deceases rapidly, turbulence is reduced and
alleviated, and streamlines constantly update with changes
in terrain and drive the movement of particles until the last
local steady state. The existence of the downstream dune
can’t be seen attributed to sediment itself or the calculation
is excessively sketchy in the balance process. Ultimately, the
equilibrium profile is reached and the scour depth to an
approximate dynamic equilibrium situation that is
interesting will be used as a reference value.
The present study provides the approximate state of
sediment erosion including the sediment (29 and A1817
stations), fine sediment (A2 and A3 stations), extra fine
90 Yonggang Cao, et al. Prediction of Scour Depth around Offshore Pipelines in the South China Sea

sediment (25 and 28 stations), silt (A1607 station). However,
the forecast is done before construction and the verification
of reliability, but the so experiment is not done for validation
although the actual conditions in worksite should be
satisfied. For comparison, the early scour results on seven
different stations are listed, which is mainly to explore the
influence of sediment size on seabed pipeline. Different
initial mean velocity with the current case plays a certain
reference arriving role to scour evolution around pipelines.
In these stations, the maximum mean velocity of vertical
sections belongs to A2 station, with the minimum diameter
of the pipe, the scour pit pattern and maximum scour depth
are the characters which can be found easily on the fine
sediment.

(a) Scour depth of A2, 0.335 m—>0.48 m—>0.52 7m

(b) Scour depth of A3, 0.212 m—>0.322 m—>0.348 m

(c) Scour depth of 25, 0.24 m—>0.359 m—>0.34 m

(d) Scour depth of 28, 0.18 m—>0.31 m—>0.345 m

(e) Scour depth of 29, 0.195 m—>0.289 m—>0.303 m

(f) Scour depth of A1817, 0.25 m—>0.368 m—>0.4 m

(g) Scour depth of A1607, 0.258 m—>0.435 m—>0.49 m

Fig. 8 Bed profiles during the development of scouring

4.2 Scour depth
Fig. 9 presents a plot of scour depth (stations from A2 to
A1607) as a function of time. A faster scouring rate during
the period between 10 and 100 minutes indicates that the
bottom layer depth determines the initial scour rate. The
solid line shown indicates that the scour depth no longer
changes after 50 minutes and the scour pit is in balance. The
effects of incipient velocity, pipe diameter and sediment
particle size are considered simultaneously in analyzing the
incipient of sediment around the pipeline. The scour depth
Journal of Marine Science and Application (2015) 14: 83-92 91

of 28 and A1607 stations shows a general reasonableness for
sediment particle size distribution. When sediment particle
size is small to a certain extent, the bed surface sediment
gradually becomes difficult to start. This can be reflected in
the sand (25 stations). When the sediment particle size is
large to a certain extent, the situation is not different, which
results in the size of the relevant response for scour depth.
Scour depth increases with time and then tends to limit the
final equilibrium state.
4.3 Theoretical results
As mentioned above, six theoretical formulas (Table 3)
were chosen in the tests. Those formulas were chosen to
achieve a relatively broad scour depth range. The
calculations were also carried out for the same pipe diameter.
The results were validated by numerical results, indicating
Table 3 The maximum scour depth for 7 stations
that the theoretical results can't meet the actual requirements
under the action of currents. As seen in Table 8, when the
scour depth becomes a certain value (greater than 1 m), this
case is considered as “Deposit”. Compared to all cases,
deposit and scour around the pipeline is complex, in which
vortex results in intense erosion. However, it could not be
greater than 1 m according to the experimental results (Mao,
1986) and the actual conditions in worksite in the South
China Sea. The present model predicts that this is a little
smaller than the theoretical results, respectively. The stations
for 25, 28 and 29 are predicted to be too low when
compared with others indicated. This may be a result of the
fact that the theoretical results could be calculated to provide
slightly too much deposition due to the limit of the
conditions in theoretical formula.
m

Method A2 A3 25 28 29 A1817 A1607

Zhang −0.93 −0.16 Deposit Deposit 0.06 −0.33 0.72
Tang 0.30 0.74 Deposit Deposit Deposit 0.62 0.72
Dou −1.09 −0.16 Deposit Deposit 0.069 −0.53 0.87
Wang and Bai −0.47 0 Deposit Deposit Deposit 0.18 0.87
Sha −0.35 0 Deposit Deposit Deposit 0.07 0.85
Herbich −0.38 −0.89 −0.68 −1.01 −1.13 −0.32 −0.38
Present model −0.53 −0.35 −0.35 −0.35 −0.30 −0.40 −0.49

(a) The result of A2 (b) The result of A3 (c) The result of 25 (d) The result of 28

(e) The result of 29 (f) The result of A1817 (g) The result of 1607
Fig. 9 The time evolution of scour depth in simulations

5 Conclusions
The main purpose of this paper is to obtain resonable
results from theoretical formula calculations and numerical
simulation for pipeline scour. Considering the different
sediment situations of seven stations, it can be found that the
calculated results are significantly different. But in general,
the scour depth around the pipeline is not very deep, and the
maximum scour depth should be less than 1 m, which means
that the scour depth will not exceed the pipe diameter. In the
simulations, erosion processes showed the dependence on
the calculated curve model selection, but the ultimate limit
equilibrium scour depth was the same. It was far beyond any
reasonable doubt that the calculated results agreed well with
the obtained monitoring data during the construction of a
foundation for pipeline in the South China Sea, which
showed the reliability of mathematical models for scour
prediction below offshore pipelines. The calculation results
92 Yonggang Cao, et al. Prediction of Scour Depth around Offshore Pipelines in the South China Sea
demonstrated that the numerical method presented in this
article can meet the engineering application demand.
According to the test, the influence of incipient velocity,
pipe diameter and sediment particle size on scour depth
should be considered in combination with the theoretical
analysis and numerical method, especially on such aspects
as a huge project that the experiment can not be performed.
Acknowledgement
We wish to thank Prof. Bai YC for stimulating
discussions and reviewers for their helpful comments that
led to considerable improvements to the paper.
References
Chao JL, Hennessy PV (1972). Local scour under ocean outfall
pipelines. Journal of the Water Pollution Control Federation,
44(7), 1443-1447.
Dey S, Singh NP (2007). Clear-water scour depth below
underwater pipelines. Journal of Hydro-environment Research,
1(2), 157-162.
DOI:10.1016/j.jher.2007.07.001
Dou GR (1999). Incipient motion of coarse and fine sediment.
Journal of Sediment Research, (6), 1-9. (in Chinese)
DOI: 10.3321/j.issn:0468-155X.1999.06.001
Hansen EA, Fredsoe J, Mao Y (1986). Two-dimensional scour
below pipelines. Proc. 5th Int. Symp. on Offshore Mech. and
Arctic Eng., New York, 3, 670-678.
Herbich JB (1981). Offshore pipeline design elements. Marcel
Dekker, Inc., New York, 41-69.
Jiang CB, Bai YC, Jiang NS, Hu SX (2001). Incipient motion of
cohesive silt in the Haihe River estuary. Journal of Hydraulic
Engineering, 32(6), 51-56. (in Chinese)
Leeuwenstein W, Wind HG (1984). The computation of bed shear
in a numerical model. Proceedings of 19th Conference on
Coastal Engineering, Houston, USA, 2, 1685-1702.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.9753/icce.v19
Li FJ, Cheng L (2000). Numerical simulation of pipeline local
scour with lee-wake effects. International Journal of Offshore
and Polar Engineering, 10(3), 195-199.
Liang DF, Cheng L, Li FJ (2005). Numerical modeling of flow and
scour below a pipeline in currents: Part II. Scour simulation.
Coastal Engineering, 52(1), 43-62.
DOI:10.1016/j.coastaleng.2004.09.001
Lovera F, Kennedy JF (1969). Friction-factors for flat-bed flows in
sand channels. Journal of the Hydraulics Division, 95(4),
1227-1234.
Mao Y (1986). The interaction between a pipeline and an erodible
bed. PhD thesis, Institute of Hydrodynamics and Hydraulic
Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby,
Denmark.
Sha YQ (1965). Sediment mechanical dynamics. China Industry
Press, Beijing, 167-168. (in Chinese)
Streeter VL (1963). Fluid mechanics. McGraw-Hill, New York,
33-75.
Tan GM, Jiang L, Shu CW, Lv P, Wang J (2010). Experimental
study of scour rate in consolidated cohesive sediment. Journal
of Hydrodynamics, Ser. B, 22(1), 51-57.
DOI: 10.1016/S1001-6058(09)60027-5
Tang CB (1963). Incipient motion of sediment. Journal of
Hydraulic Engineering, (2), 1-12. (in Chinese)
Wang SY, Shen HW (1985). Incipient sediment motion and riprap
design. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 111 (3), 520-538.
Wei YJ, Ye YC (2008). 3D numerical modeling of flow and scour
around short cylinder. Chinese Journal of Hydrodynamics,
23(6), 655-661. (in Chinese)
Whitehouse R (1998). Scour at marine structures: A manual for
practical applications. Thomas Telford Press, London, 45-58.
Yang B, Gao FP, Wu YX (2008). Experimental study on local
scour of sandy seabed under submarine pipeline in
unidirectional currents. Engineering Mechanics, 25(3),
206-210.
Yang B, Tao Y, Ma JL, Cui JS (2013). The experimental study on
local scour around a circular pipe undergoing vortex-induced
vibration in steady flow. Journal of Marine Science and
Technology, 21(3), 250-257.
DOI: 10.6119/JMST-012-0412-2
Zhang CL, Yu GL, Xie JB (2009). The characteristics of the shear
stress and flow field around a pipeline on fixed-bed with
different gap-ratios in unidirectional flows. Marine Sciences,
33(3), 27-30. (in Chinese)
Zhang RJ, Xie JH, Chen WB (2007). River dynamics. Wuhan
University Press, Wuhan, 32-37. (in Chinese)
Zhao M, Cheng L (2008). Numerical modeling of local scour below
a piggyback pipeline in currents. Journal of Hydraulic
Engineering, 134(10), 1452-1463.
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9429(2008)134:10(1452)
Zhao M, Cheng L (2010). Numerical investigation of local scour
below a vibrating pipeline under steady currents. Coastal
Engineering, 57(4), 397-406.
DOI: 10.1016/j.coastaleng.2009.11.008
Zhao ZH, Fernando HJS (2007). Numerical simulation of scour
around pipelines using an Euler-Euler coupled two-phase model.
Environmental Fluid Mechanics, 7(2), 121-142.
DOI: 10.1007/s10652-007-9017-8