Abstract
Abstract In this study, cryogenic (77 K) to ambient (293 K) thermal shocks are induced to investigate the material behavior and failure characteristic of a random glass-mat-reinforced thermoplastic (GMT). The GMT has numerous advantages such as robust thermal conductivity, good mechanical strength, and good impact resistance. Hence, the GMT serves as an insulation material in liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier-cargo containment systems (CCSs). In this study, 50, 100, 200, 400, and 800 cryogenic thermal cyclic shocks (77 K to 293 K) were applied to the fabricated GMT samples. The time for each cycle was 40 min, and it took up to approximately four months to completely apply the thermal cyclic shock to the specimens. The elongation, tensile strength, and elastic modulus of the testing samples obtained from the stress–strain relationship and morphologies were investigated in terms of the number of thermal cyclic shocks and strain rate. Finally, explicit formulae were proposed considering the parameters such as material properties and number of cryogenic thermal cycles to predict the material capabilities under arbitrary loading rates and cryogenic thermal cycles. It was confirmed that the degradation and defects increased with an increase in the number of cryogenic thermal cycles.
Highlights
In this study, cryogenic (77 K) to ambient (293 K) thermal shocks are induced to investigate the material behavior and failure characteristic of a random glass-matreinforced thermoplastic (GMT)
The GMT serves as an insulation material in liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier-cargo containment systems (CCSs)
The fracture strain is expected to decrease more significantly with the increase in the number of thermal cyclic shocks under higher loading conditions such as sloshing-impact loads induced in the LNG CCS because of waves
Summary
Abstract: In this study, cryogenic (77 K) to ambient (293 K) thermal shocks are induced to investigate the material behavior and failure characteristic of a random glass-matreinforced thermoplastic (GMT). The LNG CCS comprises a metallic-based stainless steel membrane, a composite-based plywood, a reinforced polyurethane foam (RPUF), and laminated adhesives, which help in sustaining the cryogenic temperatures of LNG owing to their robust thermal characteristics. The conventional insulating materials such as polyurethane foam, plywood, and glass fiber have been extensively studied in terms of their mechanical and thermal properties to employ them in cryogenic (110 K) temperature-based LNG CCS [4,5,6]. It is inevitable to investigate the effect of cryogenic thermal cycles on the material characteristics of the GMT for robust design and safe fabrication of the LNG CCS because the insulation box is constantly exposed to the cryogenic thermal cyclic load during its operation. The explicit formulae were proposed to predict the material capacities under arbitrary cryogenic thermal cycles
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