Composite Pipe Design Advances

Composite pipe design and verification requires a multi-disciplined approach. Key activities include: manufacturing and quality control, local cross-sectional finite element analysis (FEA), material testing and qualification, full scale testing and global analysis.

The use of cross sectional FEA using tools such as ABAQUS or ANSYS enables composite pipe design optimisation to be conducted in a quick and robust manner. Fiber layups and orientations can be adjusted in the FEA to improve tensile, pressure or bending capacity depending on the application; thus minimising the need for expensive manufacturing and testing.