Crushing study for interlocked armor layers of unbonded flexible risers with a modified equivalent stiffness method

Interlocked armor layers of unbonded flexible risers may crush when risers are being launched. In order to predict the behavior of interlocked armor layers, they are usually simplified as rings with geometric and contact nonlinearity ignored in the open-literature. However, the equivalent thickness of the interlocked armor layer has not been addressed yet. In the present paper, a geometric coefficient γ is introduced to the equivalent stiffness method, and a linear relationship between γ and geometric parameters of interlocked armor layers is validated by analytical and finite element models. Radial stiffness and equivalent thickness of interlocked armor layers are compared with experiments and different equivalent methods, which show that the present method has a higher accuracy. Furthermore, hoop stress distribution of interlocked armor layer under crushing is predicted, which indicates the interlocked armor layer can be divided into two compression and two expansion zones by four symmetrically distributed singular points. •A geometric coefficient was introduced to calculate the equivalent thickness of interlocked armor layers.•A linear relationship between the geometric coefficient and geometric parameters of interlocked armor layer was validated.•Hoop stress distributions of interlocked armor layers were compared with different equivalent methods.