Study and design of a deepwater sub-sea pipeline collet connector

A collet connector was used to connect pipeline ends in a sub-sea production system through installation of a remotely operated tool. This solved the problem of a deepwater high-pressure seal and diver-less fast installation. This paper established a mathematical model of contact. Contact characteristics were obtained through contact analysis of a connector model by using the finite element, and the relationship between the preload and gasket axial force was studied. The whole scheme of the collet connector system was proposed. The collet connector was designed using the structure of the collet, claw, hub, and lens ring, and the lens ring axial seal was achieved by collet radial pre-tightening. Through pressure testing, high-pressure sealing implementation of 65MPa shows that the connector seal is safe, the structure design is reasonable, and the correctness of the finite element model is proved.