Fibre glass reinforced flexible pipe (FGRFP) is widely used in the field of onshore and offshore pipelines for transport of oil and chemicals in recent years. This paper presents the mechanical properties of FGRFP under tensile load by establishing a 3D finite element model in ABAQUS. By comparing and analyzing results from the analytical model and the FE model, the results of the analytical method are verified by the numerical method in the same boundary condition and loading method. On the basis of good agreement in two ways, the analysis of different materials is taken into account comprehensively. In addition, a sensitivity study is conducted to discuss the influence of important parameters such as fibre glass amount and winding angle on the behavior of FGRFP.
Fibre glass reinforced flexible pipe (FGRFP) is widely used in the field of onshore and offshore pipelines for transport of oil and chemicals in recent years. It is widely recognized that FGRFP is a new choice for oil and gas transportation due to its huge advantages in light weight, corrosion resistance and abrasive resistance. FGRFP is compounded by high-strength fibre and thermoplastic material, which will be subjected to various loads and load combination in the process of installation and operation. Therefore, the investigation on the mechanical behavior of FGRFP is essential.
Nowadays many researchers have studied the mechanical properties of reinforced thermoplastic pipe like FGRFP. Most theoretical models are based on the Classical Laminated-plate Theory. Early studies on reinforced thermoplastic pipe subjected to tension can be traced back to 1984. Rosenow MWK (Rosenow, 1984) analyzed the effects of different winding angles on the performance of reinforced thermoplastic pipe subjected to different loading conditions (which include biaxial pressure, hoop pressure and tension) based on Classical Laminated-plate Theory and a series of experiments. Similarly, Xia M et al. (Xia et al., 2001 and 2002)considered the pipe as a 3D orthotropic cylinder and discussed stress and deformation of sandwich pipe subjected to three conditions (which are internal pressure, pure bending and combined internal pressure and temperature effect).Based on plane strain assumption, Kruijer MP et al. (Kruijeret al., 2005) discussed long length reinforced thermoplastic pipe (LLRTP) torsion property subjected to internal pressure. Bai Y (Bai Yet al., 2012) proposed a theoretical model applied to analyze mechanical property of reinforced thermoplastic pipe (RTP).