Fiber-Reinforced-Plastic Cold-Water-Pipe Test Plan.
Abstract
Fiber Reinforced Plastics offer great advantages when used in complex applications which must survive severe environmental conditions. It is light in weight, flexible in design and construction, and highly corrosion resistant, offering the promise of new, highly cost effective and low maintenance process systems. The latent potential of FRP attributes has only been tapped. There are many areas of variation between FRP and other materials of construction, however, and they must be carefully considered in equipment design. Some of the characteristics of FRP will appear as liabilities, when, in fact, with the use of new design approaches, they become profound assets. One such characteristic is the variability of the product itself. Fiber Reinforced Plastic is actually produced as the equipment is being formed. This variability results in less well-defined physical properties for any particular composite. Also a wide range of physical properties are possible with different laminate constructions. In addition to this, Fiber Reinforced Plastic laminates have different physical properties in different directions, physical properties which also vary with exposure and time. The consequence of this variability is a greater need of materials testing for laminate optimization to the particular application and to establish new laminate performance for these applications. This need for materials testing is nowhere more appropriate than in the application of Fiber Reinforced Plastics to a complex design such as the OTEC Cold Water Pipe. In the following test management plan, a flexible test configuration and procedure is proposed in which Fiber Reinforced Plastic scale models of the actual cold water pipe and joint configurations can be exhaustively and cost effectively tested. (MM)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 24, 1978
- Accession Number
- ADA303629
Entities
People
- Jerome L. Devilbiss
- Winston J. Renoud