Abstract
Offshore structures are exposed to risks of vessel collisions and impacts from dropped objects. Tubular members are extensively used in offshore construction, and thus, there is scope to investigate their crashworthiness behaviour. Aluminium, glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) and hybrid aluminium/GFRP circular tube specimens were fabricated and then tested under quasi-static and dynamic axial loading conditions. Two hybrid configurations were examined: external and internal layers from respectively aluminium and GFRP, and vice versa. The material impregnated with epoxy resin woven glass fabric was allowed to cure attached to the aluminium layer to ensure interlayer bonding. The quasi-static and dynamic tests were conducted using respectively a universal testing machine at a prescribed crosshead speed of 10 mm/min, and a 78 kg drop hammer released from 2.5 m. The non-hybrid configurations (aluminium and GFRP specimens) outperformed their hybrid counterparts in terms of crashworthiness characteristics.
Highlights
The term crashworthiness can be defined as the ability of a structure to absorb kinetic energy in the event of collision [1]
Where F is the reaction force of the structure at any δ
Wall cracks were observed in AL (Figure 8 top), but not developed in wall tearing as in AL
Summary
The term crashworthiness can be defined as the ability of a structure to absorb kinetic energy in the event of collision [1]. The steel legs of offshore platforms may undergo indentation (local deformation), bending and stretching (global deformation) at the same time when they are in direct contact with the colliding vessel (Figure 1) In such cases and when the struck member is close to a tubular joint, the supporting braces mostly experience axial compression [2] and absorb energy through different mechanisms depending on the axial length to the cross-sectional perimeter, and the cross-sectional perimeter to wall thickness ratios [4,5].
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