An empirical model for flexible pipe armor wire lateral buckling failure load

•A simple equation for predicting the compressive load limit for the occurence of flexible pipes armor wire lateral buckling is proposed.•For that, Østergaard et al.'s [9] model is solved for a sample of 29 flexible pipes, with internal diameters ranging from 4 to 9 pol.•Results of the numerical model regarding the behavior of the wire during the load increment are discussed.•Results from the proposed model are compared to those of an analytical model developed by Sævik and Ji [14]. The current scenario of oil production in ultra deep waters challenges the design of flexible pipes since they have to withstand high pressures, temperatures and dynamic loads during operation. Amongst the known failure mechanisms in flexible pipes, armor wire lateral buckling is of uttermost importance as there is no undisputable model for its prediction. In this work, compressive failure load for tensile armor lateral buckling is calculated for a sample of 29 flexible pipes based on the resolution of a numerical model that considers force and moment equilibrium conditions and geometric compatibility relations from differential geometry concepts. The obtained results are fitted on an equation via symbolic regression. Thus, a simple empirical model to predict compressive failure load is proposed as a function of the radius of tensile armor, wire lay angle and torsional, normal and binormal bending stiffness of the wire cross section. The model assumes the absence of frictional distributed forces in the wire and curvature of the flexible pipe, therefore it provides conservative results. For the 29 flexible pipe sample, the mean absolute percentage error of the empirical results in view of the numerical results was 0.6%.