Failure and stress analysis of internal pressurized composite pipes joined with sleeves

Abstract

Failure and stress analyses were carried out for composite pipes adhesively joined with sleeves subjected to internal pressure. In the study, the composite pipes and sleeves were E glass fiber/epoxy with different fiber orientation angles. Circular pieces cut from four layered composite pipes with different orientation angle were used as sleeves. Composite pipes with different orientation angle were bonded using DP410 and DP490 type adhesives. The codes of a numerical model were generated via ANSYS software package for the numerical analyses, and the numerical results were verified using experimental results. The problems were analyzed by using a calculation method based on finite elements method (FEM). The finite element analyses (FEA) were carried out to predict the failure internal pressure. Radial, tangential, axial and shear stress values were obtained via numerical analyses for composite pipes and adhesive layers in the thickness direction. In addition, Von–Mises stress distributions that develop on the adhesive were obtained as well. The effects of orientation angle, sleeve length and adhesive type on strength of composite pipe and bonded zone were examined. The results showed that the adhesive type has higher effect on the strength of bonded composite pipes when compared with orientation angle and sleeve length. In addition, increase in sleeve length increased the failure internal pressure.