Abstract
The increasing demands in subsea industry such as oil and gas, led to a rapidly growing need for the use of advanced, high performance, lightweight materials such as composite materials. E-glass fibre laminated pre-preg, filament wound and braided tubes were tested to destruction under hydrostatic external pressure in order to study their buckling and crushing behaviour. Different fibre architectures and wind angles were tested at a range of wall thicknesses highlighting the advantage that hoop reinforcement offers. The experimental results were compared with theoretical predictions obtained from classic laminate theory and finite element analysis (ABAQUS) based on the principal that the predominant failure mode was buckling. SEM analysis was further performed to investigate the resulting failure mechanisms, indicating that the failure mechanisms can be more complex with a variety of observed modes taking place such as fibre fracture, delamination and fibre-matrix interface failure.
Highlights
As the requirement for achieving higher subsea depths is increasing so does the demand for the use of lightweight, high performance composite materials, in an effort to replace theAppl Compos Mater (2017) 24:417–448 traditionally employed metallic structures
This work studied the performance of composite tubes when subjected to external hydrostatic pressures
The work focused on the experimental and numerical analysis of pre-preg laminated tubes made of plain and satin weave and filament wound and braided tubes wound at a range of reinforcement angles
Summary
As the requirement for achieving higher subsea depths is increasing so does the demand for the use of lightweight, high performance composite materials, in an effort to replace the. There has been a recent interest in utilising weaving techniques from the textiles industry in order to produce high performance fabrics for composite structures These manufacturing techniques aim to overcome problems related to laminated composites, such as delaminations and interface mismatch between the constituent materials through the interlacing of the tows in the through-thickness direction [1]. The current research aims to add to the existing knowledge starting from the more conventional laminated (tape layup) tubes, and expanding to filament wound and braided tubes, all reinforced with E-glass fibres. This was achieved through the experimental testing of samples at a range of wall thickness and reinforcement angles and through the understanding of their complex failure mechanisms when subjected to hydrostatic external loads.
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