Progressive Failure Analysis of GRP Pipes: Modeling and Experimental Evaluation

The main goal of this research is to develop an appropriate tool to predict hoop tensile strength (HTS) of GRP pipes incorporating sand as a core material. Usually, GRP pipe industries use simple netting analysis to predict HTS of GRP Pipes during structural design procedure. Along the simplicity of this method, it underestimates the HTS resulting in over designed and expensive pipes. A progressive damage modelling technique which is suitable for laminated composites with quartz sand core is developed. The developed code investigates failure status in each and every ply carefully and reduces mechanical properties of failed ply in accordance with failure mode using degradation rules. The procedure continues until the occurrence of last ply failure. A computer code is written to calculate HTS of GRP pipes using winding angles, number of layers and sand weight fraction as the main input parameters. A complete set of experiments have been carried out on different ranges of diameters and pressures of GRP pipes to determine the suitability of developed method. It is observed that developed progressive damage modelling for GRP pipes with sand filler predict HTS of pipes with high level of accuracy.