Patent ID: 8100150

Claim:
A flexible tubular pipe for transporting hydrocarbons, the pipe comprising a set of unbonded layers including, at least, from inside the pipe outward, a carcass, an internal pressure sheath and one or more armor plies; the carcass comprising a helicoidal winding of successive turns of an S-shaped profiled metal strip, wherein adjacent turns are interlocked, the turns of the strip having edges, the edges of two adjacent turns being shaped and positioned and being overlapping to form between them a helicoidal closed space bounded in a radial direction of the pipe by an inner-fiber wall at one of the edges of one of the adjacent turns and an opposed outer-fiber wall at an adjacent one of the edges of the other of the adjacent turns, and the space is formed from at least one thickness of the metal strip, the closed space being bounded in a longitudinal direction thereof of the winding which is along a length dimension of the pipe by two opposed lateral walls also formed from a thickness of metal strip and each being at the respective adjacent edge of a respective one of the adjacent turns a one-piece profiled spacer at least partially occupying the open space, the spacer being wound helically, being separate from the metal strip, and bearing at least on the two opposed inner-fiber and outer-fiber walls, the profiled spacer being configured and being of such materials such that the spacer is almost uncrushable in the radial direction of the winding but is substantially crushable in the longitudinal direction of the winding.