Stress and failure analyses of thermoplastic composite pipes subjected to torsion and thermomechanical loading

The interest of using thermoplastic composite pipes has increased in offshore deepwater oil fields. Thermoplastic composite pipes consist of several carbon/glass fiber reinforced laminate layers to confer stiffness and strength located between inner and outer homogeneous thermoplastic layers for fluid containment and protection. This paper presents a theoretical analysis for thermoplastic composite pipes under combined pure torsion and thermomechanical loading from operational thermal gradients, considering the inner and outer isotropic homogeneous layers and intermediate transversely isotropic laminate ply layers. Perfect bond between adjacent layers and interfaces continuities are assumed. Based on the obtained stresses in the principal material directions, through-thickness failure indexes related to the von Mises and Maximum Stress or Tsai-Hill criteria are respectively evaluated for homogeneous and laminate layers. For each thermal gradient, the limit torque (i.e. when the failure index is equal to 1) is calculated. From the case study, it is observed that without thermal loading or for small operational temperature, failure occurs in the laminate, otherwise it is observed in the inner homogeneous layer. The thickness of the homogeneous layer significantly affects the limit torque and the absolute values of the limit clockwise and anticlockwise torque slightly differ when the operational temperature is included.