Flexible pipe used in many deepwater developments must be able to withstand crushing external hydrostatic pressures and high internal gas velocity, while remaining flexible enough to absorb the movements of a floating production system at the surface.
They are, therefore, a necessarily complex arrangement of composite materials. For high-velocity gas applications, the industry has traditionally deployed flexible pipe with a conventional Agraff carcass — the innermost layer of the composite pipe — made of interlocked, S-shaped steel bands.
