The influence of erosion manner on the buckling resistance of pipelines

•Established a three-dimensional pipeline erosion buckling model for the first time.•Buckling analysis revealed abnormal enhancement effects: scattered corrosion pits will increase the critical load.•This anomalous effect can be approximately explained by the honeycomb structure. This article establishes a three-dimensional deep-sea pipeline buckling model for the first time based on the simulation results of pipeline erosion. Through calculation and comparison, it was found that the critical buckling load of intact pipelines and pipelines under uniform corrosion and random pitting corrosion is different. Uniform corrosion can reduce the critical load, but random pitting corrosion can improve the buckling resistance of pipelines. This conclusion is the first discovery.