Standards Development

Scope

This British Standard provides guidance for performing seabed stability of flexible power cables on rocky seabeds. This standard does not provide guidance for performing seabed stability on softer seabeds such as sand and clay, and so should not be used as an alternative to other existing standards that do provide guidance on these seabed types. Where seabeds consist of a layer of mobile sediment over rocky seabed this standard may be appropriate if it can be demonstrated that the sediment could be washed away in the design extreme condition; where seabeds consist of intermittent seabed types this standard may be used in conjunction with DNV-RP-F109 or other equivalent codes.

Nothing in this document relieves the designer from the responsibility to consider the applicability of any design methods or guidance included in this document to the situation they are being applied to. This includes but is not limited to the application of this Standard to types of pipeline other than flexible power cables – for example umbilicals, flexible or rigid pipelines for oil, gas or other service fluid transport or telecommunications cables.

Purpose

The standard will provide a more appropriate basis for the stability design of cables on rocky seabeds, than the standards that were originally developed for other seabed types. Using actual in-field data from exiting cables that have been installed on rocky seabeds, the new standard will define a methodology that more accurately predicts the stability response of cables on rocky seabeds using available in-field data. The intention of this standard is to reduce costs of future planned UK based projects through consolidation of industry knowledge and expertise and thus establish an improved basis for calculating the stability of subsea power cables on rocky seabeds. The improved guidance is also intended to reduce cost within the UK based supply chain by avoiding the need for over engineered cable/hardware solutions that are exported internationally, allowing UK based manufacturers to optimize their designs for weight significantly reducing costs and increasing product marketability.