The effect of anchoring activity on the burial depth of submarine pipeline

The protection of submarine pipelines has always been the key point in the pipeline engineering. In the offshorewaters, especially in the maritime traffic-intensive waters, the anchoring activities of ships have always been an importantfactor leading to pipeline incidents. A reasonable value of burial depth should be proposed by comprehensively analyzing theembedded depth of the anchor in the seabed, so as to effectively avoid the damage to the pipelines by the anchors. Domesticand foreign standards on the burial depth of submarine pipeline were compared, and the types of the possible damage tosubmarine pipelines by anchoring activities were analyzed. Then, the relationships between the anchoring activities of shipsand the burial depth of submarine pipeline were analyzed from two aspects, i.e., the penetrating depth after the anchor hits theseabed during the anchoring and the maximum depth that the anchor fluke can run into the seabed while dragging the anchor.Based on the burial depths in foreign standards, it is suggested that a more reasonable burial depth of submarine pipeline is1.5-2 m in the maritime traffic-intensive waters.