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Shell Casing and Tubing Design Guide


Chapter 5
Design Factors

5. DESIGN FACTORS..............................................................................................................2
5.1 Historical Origin of Design Factors................................................................................2
5.2 Load and Resistance Design Factors ..............................................................................2
5.3 Alternative Design Factors .............................................................................................3
Adjustment of the Design Factor to Account for Lower or Higher Load Uncertainty.................. 3
Adjustment of the Design Factor to Account for Probable Rupture Capacity .............................. 4
Adjustment of Design Factor for Particular Pipe Materials .......................................................... 4
Adjustment of Design Factor to Account for Likelihood of Events.............................................. 4
Adjustment of Design Factor to Account for Consequences ........................................................ 4
Adjustment for the Depth of Engineering Preparation.................................................................. 4
Experience with Other Burst Design Factors in Level Two/Three Design Practice ..................... 5
Probabilistic Approach to Collapse Pressure ................................................................................ 5
Burst Design Factor for Injection .................................................................................................. 5
Completion Components and Design Factors ............................................................................... 7

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5. DESIGN FACTORS
5.1

Historical Origin of Design Factors

The purpose of the design factor is to address uncertainty in both the resistance (capacity) of the
pipe and the loads applied to the pipe. The design factor is intended for the unexpected loading
(e.g., stuck pipe, higher production rate to higher temperature than anticipated) or the unexpected
performance of the pipe (low end of the strength distribution curve). The design factor is not
intended to compensate for failing to engineer parts of the well design: the design factor is not
intended to cover the effects of temperature on yield strength or thermal stresses, to cover the
impact of casing wear, or to cover the neglect of corrosion or the use of an unintended lightweight
or light-grade joint in the string. That is, the design factor is intended to address the uncertainty of
background events within reasonable tolerances; the factor is not intended to compensate for
rogue pipe or large operational mistakes.
The design factors used for decades by Shell have their origins in experience taken over a huge
number of wells drilled and produced. The design factor is not based on any particular advanced
stress analysis, limit calculation, or probability assessment. Instead these design factors are based
on average experience. In Level Two design practice, the values of design factors used by a
particular operating company are derived from the particular extensive operating experience of
that operating company. Based on historical operating experience, the following design factors
are recommended:
Recommended Combined Design Factors for Level One Design
Triaxial Burst
Collapse
Tensile

1.25
1.0
1.3

These are referred to as combined design factors because they are single, net values which address
both uncertainty of load and uncertainty of pipe (or connection) resistance to withstand a given
load. The triaxial burst design factor is applied to the pipe yield strength in the triaxial stress
calculation, and the yield strength is also separately adjusted for temperature. The collapse design
factor is applied to the rated pipe collapse pressure listed in API 5C3 (ISO 10400 pending). This
collapse strength is a function of the pipe yield strength (which depends on temperature), pipe D/T
ratio, and pipe axial tension. The tensile design factor is applied to the yield strength of the pipe,
which again depends on temperature.
5.2

Load and Resistance Design Factors

The design factor which gets used in the design software and gets applied to the pipe yield
strength or pipe pressure is a combined design factor which represents the combination of
uncertainty about loads applied to the pipe and uncertainty of the resistance (capacity) of the pipe
to withstand the loads. Tubulars design is executed by balancing the resistance of the pipe with
the load which acts on the pipe during different well operations. Because of the two different
sources for uncertainty, there really are two different design factors which are combining into the
single combined design factor: one resistance design factor dealing with the uncertainty of the
pipe or connection to contain pressure, and one load design factor dealing with the uncertainty of

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the load or pressure which will be applied in the well. The combined design factor is the product
of the load and resistance design factors. Table 5-1 presents a notional breakdown of load and
resistance design factors contributing to an overall combined design factor. Furthermore, design
factors do not need to be the same for all strings, because both the load and the resistance
uncertainty may be different for different strings.
Table 5-1
CONCEPTUAL DISTINCTION BETWEEN LOAD AND RESISTANCE
DESIGN FACTORS COMBINING INTO A COMBINED DESIGN FACTOR
String
General Surface and
Protective Casing
Production Casing
Production Tubing
CRA Tubing

Load Uncertainty
(approximate)

Resistance Uncertainty
(approximate)

1.15

1.10

Combined
Design Factor
1.25

1.05
1.05
1.05

1.10
1.10
1.15

1.15
1.15
1.20

Usually, unless QRA is done, there is little quantitative information, so you need to use prudent
intuitive and experience information to evaluate these uncertainties and select design factors.
The notion of resistance uncertainty represented by the design factors in Table 5-1 applies only to
good-quality pipe (good toughness, inspected free of large defects; Chapter 7). Using a large
resistance design factor is not adequate to compensate for use of poor-quality, brittle pipe. For
brittle pipe, much of the traditional stress analysis breaks down and the risk becomes
unacceptably high under burst loading.
5.3

Alternative Design Factors

Level Two and Three design practices are intended to facilitate flexibility in the value of the
design factor based on local experience or based on use of risk assessment. The sections below
provide some guidance on possible reasons that design factors might be adjusted based on an
evaluation of the driving sources for risk in the design.
Adjustment of the Design Factor to Account for Lower or Higher Load Uncertainty
One should be careful in thinking that there is no load uncertainty when it actually exists. For
example, in a production casing or tubing, you may exactly know the reservoir pressure.
However, there still is some uncertainty in the packer column pressure or the mud pressure due to
the effect of temperature and pressure on the mud/packer fluid density. During production, there
may be uncertainty in the distribution of temperature along the well, and this impacts the pressure
gradients of completion fluids and lighter-weight muds.

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Adjustment of the Design Factor to Account for Probable Rupture Capacity


To guide the choice of the burst design factor, the engineer may take account of the limit load
representing the true rupture capacity of the pipe (Appendix 6). This is not to say that the pipe
should be designed on rupture instead of on yield. However, the choice of the design factor and
how close the pipe is loaded to yield can be based on the insight derived by knowing with good
accuracy the actual limit load. To do this, you must have pipe with good toughness and you must
account for inspection practices used to eliminate large flaws. This is outlined in Appendix 6.
Adjustment of Design Factor for Particular Pipe Materials
From a likelihood-of-event point of view (this should dominate), there is a case to be made for a
higher design factor on some (not all) CRAs which have low work-hardening compared with
carbon steels. The risk of resistance failure of CRA strings can be calibrated to the experienced
used of carbon steels, which usually have higher work-hardening and higher ratios between actual
rupture and nominal yield.
Adjustment of Design Factor to Account for Likelihood of Events
Here the design factor would be higher for intermediate strings where there is more uncertainty of
the load conditions, i.e., more risk of unexpectedly severe loading. The design factor would be
smaller for the production strings where the load is known with much greater certainty. This
should be tried only if experience supports this or if risk assessment indicates that the risk is
acceptable. Usually, it is important to include and balance the consequences of failure, not just
the likelihood of events.
Both the load uncertainty and the pipe resistance uncertainty contribute to the likelihood of an
event occurring. Both of these are different from the consequences of failure. Qualitative and
quantitative risk assessment can be used to rationalize the choice of an appropriate design factor
different from the historical standard.
Adjustment of Design Factor to Account for Consequences
Here the design factor would be higher for the inner strings, the tubing, and the production casing,
because the consequence of failure is much higher. Once the well is completed, there is more
invested in the well, there is higher investment impact to a collapse failure, and there is very much
higher impact to a burst (containment) failure with a completion in place.
Both the likelihood and consequence aspects of the impact of the design factor can be combined in
a risk assessment.
Adjustment for the Depth of Engineering Preparation
One may consider the option of using a higher design factor when a smaller amount of
engineering manpower is applied to the design and developing a lower design factor (for lower
load uncertainty) to use in cases where larger amounts of engineering manpower can be applied to
the design. In this case, either you pay for the excess margin in the well or you pay for the
engineering manpower needed to remove the excess margin from the well judiciously. While this
should be done with caution to balance risks, this does point to the desire to push designs where
there is the most reward for doing so.

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Experience with Other Burst Design Factors in Level Two/Three Design Practice
Several operating companies have extensive and successful experience using triaxial burst safety
factors of 1.15, 1.10, and even 1.00 with high-pressure, even sour gas, wells. This is an important
benchmark, because it indicates that wells can be drilled, completed, and produced very
successfully while the values of design factors are pushed. However, these cases have been based
on very thorough, targeted application of experience and risk assessment to a specific, limited
series of designs. The use of triaxial burst design factors less than 1.25 requires experience or risk
assessment to justify that this can be done with prudent management of risk.
All of the examples which can be cited have been for strings of tubing or production casing.
These are strings for which there is less load uncertainty compared with protective casing.
Usually (but not always), the production strings were never drilled through and so did not have
any casing wear. Where production casing has had a low triaxial burst safety factor, the
production tubing intentionally has had a higher safety factor, and both the tubing and the
production casing have received secondary re-inspection following mill inspection. In all cases,
the consequences of pipe failure were examined and found to be manageable.
Probabilistic Approach to Collapse Pressure
When the collapse design factor of 1.0 is used, it means the engineer uses the API rating of pipe
collapse pressure. However, implicit in this rating is the way in which API collapse strength is
determined. The API collapse strength rating is derived from collapse modes associated with
models and analyses of collapse. The underlying collapse strength across most of the D/T space
is determined by the statistical scatter in observed collapse strength, based on a large amount of
original API testing. In the API formulation of collapse strength, the collapse rating is set to
correspond to a target pipe reliability of 0.5% at the rated pressure. At very high D/T, this rating
ceases to be statistically founded, but for most of the practical range of pipe D/T, this probabilistic
formulation applies. Hence, when the engineer uses a design factor of 1.0 and the API collapse
rating of the pipe, the engineer actually is designing with an assumption of certainty about the
load combined with probabilistic uncertainty of pipe performance, that five pipes out of a
thousand would be expected to fail when loaded to the rated collapse pressure.
Depending on the potential gain and potential consequences, engineers may desire to recalibrate
their collapse design to a different target probability of failure. It is more likely that gains and
consequences will be driven by the probabilities associated with the load criteria, and this also can
be put into a probabilistic framework. The API collapse pressure rating is only one example of
approaches that are available where design is calibrated to a target risk. Both resistance and load
probabilities and full-blown risk assessments have been conducted to guide the choice of design
factors or to bypass design factors completely with a risk-based framework. Examples are cited in
the references to Chapter 8.
Burst Design Factor for Injection
Here the load is very well known. If the fluid gradient is accurately known inside and outside the
pipe, then the load is very well known and the design factor addresses only the uncertainty in
resistance of the pipe. A case can readily be developed for using a lower design factor for
injection.

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Design factors in pressure tests are the same as design factors for injection. The load uncertainty
is small, and one can make a case for reducing the combined design factor accordingly. However,
before one dispenses with the design factor for load uncertainty, it is important either to assume the
most conservative possibility for pressure gradients inside and outside the pipe or to know with
very good accuracy the actual fluid properties on each side of the pipe.
The justifications for using lower design factors for pressure test conditions are as follow:
The conditions to which the pipe is exposed are accurately known during the installation
phase of a well completion.

The pipe is new and in good condition.

The pipe supposedly is not exposed to hydrocarbons, so the consequences of failure are less
severe than during production. The pipe should be mechanically isolated from the reservoir.
Examples are plugs below the tailpipe or an unperforated liner/casing.

This allows higher test pressures to be used if required. The advantage of this is that it is
common for service loads to have different depths where stresses are at their peak compared
to test stresses. This is usually caused by different pressure gradients between test and service
loads. If higher test pressures can be safely used, it allows the maximum test stresses to be
higher than the service stresses at more points in the tubing.

Design factors for connections are discussed in Chapter 4 on connections. In general, a design
factor is appropriate on a connection to cover load uncertainty, not product uncertainty. When
connection performance equals or nearly equals the performance of the pipe body, the pipe (with a
larger combined design factor) will drive the design. However, for connections which are
substantially weaker than the pipe body (e.g., round thread connections), the connection can very
well drive the design and drive the choice of the pipe. In this case, the use of a connection design
factor for load uncertainty is important if (as usual) there is any load uncertainty.
Premium connections tend to be very weak in compression. They are particularly vulnerable to
leakage after cycles of large compressive loading. There are a few proven exceptions to this.
Sometimes engineers regard the low compressive capacity of a connection as though this
represents a large design factor in compression. This is one way to look at the limitation of
connection performance and relate it to the pipe. The other way is simply to recognize that there
is a particular limit to the amount of compressive load that can be applied to a given connection,
based on the qualified service envelope of the connection (Chapter 4). The latter way of thinking
about connection performance may be a bit more clear, because for a given connection with its
corresponding limit on axial compression, there should be a design factor applied (to the
connection) for load uncertainty and not for product uncertainty. That is, it is useful not to mix up
the role and value of a design factor applied to the pipe body and the role of a different design
factor applied to the connection. The ratio of connection resistance to pipe resistance does not in
itself represent a design factor; it only highlights the difference between the two products.

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Completion Components and Design Factors


As with connections, there is a choice to be made for the design factor to apply to completion
components such as packers, PBRs, and safety valves. These are machined components with tight
tolerances. Like connections, a design factor should not be applied to product performance (this
should be set by qualification testing), but a design factor should be considered for load
uncertainty. On the other hand, a design factor for load uncertainty is not needed if the engineer
can be sure that the part is designed for the very worst possible assumed loading.
In order for the completion component not to dominate the design, the resistance of the
completion component should be chosen to equal or exceed the performance rating of the tubing
and tubing connection. Great care should be taken when this is not possible. Examples include
the following:
The stated pressure rating on DST test equipment may not have the same safety factor as used
for the tubing. The safety factor may be as low as 1.0.

Some components (especially packers and PBRs) will have a separate triaxial envelope
(combined axial and burst/collapse loads). This envelope may not be the same as for the
tubing. Triaxial effects on packers in particular may be large, as they can be subject to high
simultaneous compression and burst loads.

If the completion component is weaker than the tubing, then the tubing analysis should explicitly
include a section of pipe that approximates the strength limitations of the completion component.
If the component is stronger than the pipe, then the completion component does not need to be
included in the analysis.

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