| Abstract: | Bend stiffeners are subjected to cyclic loading during offshore operation or when subjected to a controlled full-scale qualification test. Due to the viscoelastic nature of the polyurethane, energy is dissipated within the material volume and the structure may experience a temperature increase, a phenomenon known as self-heating. The top connection is a flexible riser critical region in terms of fatigue, being the bend stiffener the main responsible for curvature control. As the curvature distribution is highly affected by the nonlinear time–temperature bend stiffener response, a detailed thermo-mechanical assessment may become relevant for riser lifetime and polyurethane material failure assessment, specially during accelerated full-scale tests. In the present paper (Part I), the polyurethane experimental characterization and steady-state thermo-mechanical mathematical formulation are presented for the bend stiffener self-heating assessment. A steady-state formulation is derived for a temperature dependent linear viscoelastic large deflection beam model to estimate the heat generation during harmonic tip loading. The temperature field distribution is calculated through a three-dimensional steady-state thermal model considering the viscoelastic heat calculated from the mechanical model with an iterative scheme. Stress relaxation tests are performed at different temperatures to determine the viscoelastic properties followed by thermal properties characterization through differential scanning calorimetry and by the Flash method to determine the specific heat, thermal conductivity and diffusivity, respectively. In a companion paper (Part II) the iterative numerical scheme is detailed and a case study presented. |
