Performance Simulation of Glass Fibre/Epoxy Composite Pipes under Multiaxial Stress Loading

Nowadays composite material especially Glass fibre reinforced epoxy (GRE) composites is one of the most widely used composite materials in such areas, especially in the marine, building and oil industry due to their lightweight, high strength and chemical/corrosion resistant properties. The aim of this paper is to provide an improved understanding of the performance of glass fibre reinforced epoxy (GRE) pipe under combined pressure and axial loads. The performances of GRE composite pipes is investigated through finite element modelling of ultimate elastic wall stress test under multi-axial loading ranging from pure axial to pure hoop loadings. ANSYS software will be used for finite element modelling of GRE pipes. A stress-strain response was obtained for each winding angle and the results for modelling then compared with those experimental computed through laminate theory. It is also concluded that the experimental results stress, which represent the onset of non-linearity were very much dependent on the transverse and shear stress response, and these values were found to be consistent with the predicted values from the commonly used Tsai-Wu failure criterion.