Advanced software for

stress analysis of
composite pipe systems
Conventional FEA is typically too time consuming and cumbersome for an entire GRP
pipe system and a specialized pipe stress analysis package should be used. But not
all pipe analysis packages handle GRP equally well, so before buying you should
investigate the softwares ability to handle composite materials with non-isotropic
properties advises Alfred L. Newberry of FEMech Engineering.

0
ne of the most structurally Third, GRP has a significantly higher assumptions and can easily overlook
complex engineering applica- coefficient of thermal expansion than factors which may make the design
tions for corrosion resistant steel which results in higher thermal non-conservative. Thanks to the power
glass fibre reinforced plastics (GRP) is growth displacements. Coefficients of of desk top computers and develop-
piping. This complexity arises from a thermal expansion vary significantly with ments in piping software, advanced
variety of factors. the type of reinforcement scheme. In a analysis and design is now more cost
First, most piping systems are geo- recent power plant seawater cooling pip- effective than hand calculations and far
metrically complex with changes in ing project, three types of reinforcement more accurate and comprehensive.
diameter, changes in direction, various schemes were used. The smaller piping
types of intersections and a wide variety was wound at 55 (as measured from the Software
of supports. pipe axis) and the axial coefficient of ther- Two types of software are typically
Second, GRP, while being on the mal expansion was 28.8 mm/mm/C. The required for analysis and design of com-
same order of magnitude as plain carbon larger piping was wound at 75 and axial- posite piping systems. Lamination analy-
steel in terms of strength, is an order of ly reinforced with unidirectional fibre. sis software is required to predict the
magnitude lower in stiffness than steel. The axial coefficient of thermal expan- properties of the pipe laminate and pipe
This results in much larger mechanical sion was 21.4 mm/mm/ C. The reducers stress analysis software is required to
growth in GRP piping due to pressure were fabricated using contact moulding model the system.
and other mechanical loads than would with mat and woven roving. The coeffi- In most cases, it is necessary to model
be the case with metallic piping. cient for this material was the pipe laminate using lamination
20.0 mm/mm/C. By comparison, the analysis in order to obtain accurate
coefficient of thermal expansion for plain material properties. Even with commodi-
carbon steel is 15.2 mm/mm/C. Clearly, ty pipe, the designer is rarely given pre-
the largest difference is 5.5 helically cise material properties. Normally a
wound pipe where the thermal coefficient rather wide range of properties is pub-
is almost twice that of steel. lished by the pipe manufacturer. At the
In order to properly analyze and minimum, the designer will need accu-
design a GRP piping system, all of these rate numbers for the hoop and axial
effects need to be accounted for simul- moduli, the axial coefficient of thermal
taneously. Except for simple systems, expansion, the Poissons ratio and the
this is virtually impossible using hand material density. There are a number of
calculation methods. When complex lamination analysis programs on the
Non-linear shell element model of a large sea- piping systems are designed by hand market, one of which is particularly well
water cooling header pipe for a petrochemical
complex in the Middle East. calculations and simple formulas, the suited to GRP for corrosion resistant
designer has to make conservative applications.

46 RElNFDRCEDplastics October 2002 0034-36 1710218 - see front matter 0 2002

Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
 Advanced software for stress analysis of composite pipe systems

The major software is, of course, the matrix to bring the system into mechan-
modelling program. GRP pipe can be very ical equilibrium within the convergence
accurately modelled with conventional tolerance. In a complex system, only a
finite element analysis (FEA) using com- non-linear solution is accurate.
posite shell elements but this is typically
too time consuming and cumbersome for
The piping elements found
an entire system. Shell element FEA mod-
els of complex intersections, headers, tees in typical FEA packages
and wyes are, however, worth the invest-
ment of time as they yield detailed stress,
are unsuitable for GRP.
displacement and buckling information
Rendered pipe stess analysis model of a se@
for these critical areas. It is very important for the designer to be water cooling piping system for Singapore.
For modelling the entire system, a aware of the fact that the piping ele-
specialized pipe stress analysis package ments found in typical FEA packages are
should be used. There are a number of unsuitable for GRP pipe. These elements Modelling
internationally recognized pipe stress are for isotropic materials and give inac- Typically the starting point for creating a
analysis packages on the market, howev- curate results when used to model GRP pipe system analysis is to enter the materi-
er not all handle GRP equally well. Prior piping systems. At least some of these al names and material properties of each
to purchasing a pipe stress analysis pack- elements do not properly account for laminate along with the properties of any
age, the designer should investigate the Poissons effects which makes the results other materials appearing in the system.
softwares ability to handle composite even more inaccurate. GRP piping systems often have metallic
materials with non-isotropic properties. Some time ago, I was engaged by a valves or spool pieces so the properties for
Pipe stress analysis software is a custom GRP pipe fabricator to design the these materials must be defined.
specialized three-dimensional, non-linear GRP piping systems for two power Next, the pressure and thermal load
beam finite element program. The plants. After the pipe stress analysis for cases must be defined and named. For
software is tailored to piping systems. For the first system was submitted, the fabri- example, Ll may be a pressure of 5 bar
example, pipe stress analysis software cators in-house engineer, who is relative- and a temperature of SOC, L2 may be a
includes a wide variety of supports such as ly new to the composites industry, chal- pressure of 7 bar and a temperature of
anchors, guides, limit stops, and hangars. lenged the results. He was unable to 45 C, etc. A large number of load cases
The software has many fitting options correlate the output from the pipe stress may be generated but typically only a
such as smooth bends, closely spaced analysis to simple hand calculations and few are required for most models.
mitred bends, widely spaced mitred to models he had run using the pipe ele- Thirdly, the pipe sections must be
bends, reducers, eccentric reducers, etc. ments in a conventional FEA package. defined. In this data set is found the diam-
The designer can apply pressure, thermal, This resulted in a lot of wasted time and eters and wall thicknesses of the various
mechanical, gravity, seismic and wind effort and needless delays in completing pipe sections. The sections must also be
loading to the system. Wind and seismic the design. A great deal of time was spent assigned names. It is recommended that
loading directions can be specified, of in correspondence and discussion with the names be intuitive to avoid errors and
course. Gravity, wind and seismic loading the pipe stress analysis software techni- speed up the modelling process. For
are global but pressure, thermal and cal support personnel and software example, a 50 cm diameter GRP pipe sec-
mechanical loads can be varied continu- developers but the issue remained un- tion can simply be named G50 and a 50
ously throughout the system. resolved. Finally, a shell element FEA cm diameter steel pipe section S50.
All finite element software consists of model was run and the results correlated Modelling a piping system can range
elements defined in space by nodes. The very well with the pipe stress analysis from relatively easy to very tedious
elements may be beams, shells or solids. software. The shell element model depending on the quality of the isomet-
Pipe stress analysis software uses beam proved the hand calculations and the ric drawing. Pipe elements are modelled
elements mathematically tailored for conventional FEA pipe element models by defining each successive node in rela-
piping. Each pipe stress analysis element to be very inaccurate. This was due to the tive position to the previous node. To
has two or three nodes (elbows and tees fact that the shell element FEA and the define a node, one gives the program the
have three nodes). Adjacent elements pipe stress analysis models properly DX, DY and DZ dimensions of that node
share a common node which mathemat- accounted for Poissons effects. Poissons with respect to the previous node. A
ically joins the elements together. effects were ignored by the hand calcula- good isometric will provide the pipe
Non-linear analysis, unlike linear tions and the conventional FEA pipe designer with that information. Without
analysis, iteratively solves the stiffness element models. a good isometric, the pipe designer often

October 2002 REINFORCEDplastics 47

Advanced software for stress analysis of composite pipe systems

r pipe stress analysis programs, do not tell laborious to assemble this type of infor-
the designer how to design but rather give mation but it is a bonus benefit of pipe
the results of the loads on the design he analysis software and typically presented
has specified. The designer must begin in a nice tabular format. This informa-
with a reasonable design and then itera- tion can be particularly useful to those
tively refine the design by changes to the preparing bids for a job.
materials, cross sections and supports in
order to achieve an acceptable solution. Pricing
Perhaps the most significant changes Given the commercial and technical
Complex non-linear shell element model of main
which are made in the iteration process information derived from pipe stress
cooling water FRP piping 2300 diameter x 1500 are to the supports. Anchors are often analysis, fabricators should consider
diameter branch at the condenser. Due to the
complexity, the model required 28 coordinate strategically placed to force displacements running at least a preliminary pipe
_..... away from a sensitive area. Limit stops model at the tender stage especially
which allow movement in all directions for large complex jobs. Even a prelimi-
except downward are often very useful nary model will provide enough infor-
stress relievers especially in bends and mation for the fabricator to generate
other fittings. In the case of piping sup- accurate pricing. In every case, an accu-
port, more is not always better. It is typi- rate price is the best price for all parties
cally better to reduce the degrees of involved.
restraint at many points rather than Some years ago, I was engaged to
increasing the restraint. provide the pipe stress analysis for a
critical GRP ducting system for a large
Rendered pipe stress analyis model of a section
ofa powerplant return load connected to the Additional benefits pharmaceutical company. The contrac-
cooling tower.
In addition to providing the pipe design- tor significantly underbid the job
1 ,
er with stresses, displacements, and sup- because he had the pipe stress analysis
has to hand calculate nodal positions in port loads, pipe stress analysis packages done after the job was awarded rather
three-dimensional space which is time perform other very useful functions. than before. The contractor had not
consuming and tedious. The displacements for bellows or accounted for a number of expensive
Nodes are placed at all points of inter- expansion joints are listed in a separate items such as special expansion joints
est and must be placed at supports, and at table for ease of evaluation. In GRP sys- and so he was financially unable to
the beginning and end of fittings, reduc- tems, exceeding bellows displacement complete the job. This resulted in heavy
ers, valves, bellows, etc. As each node is limitations is always of concern. monetary losses for the contractor and
input, the type of element must be The output contains a complete XYZ significant time and monetary losses for
defined such as a pipe, bellows, reducer, coordinate map of the system showing the pharmaceutical company, which
bend, etc. The type of material, the pres- the location of all of the nodes. This type had to engage another fabricator to start
sure/thermal load case and the section of information is often very useful in from scratch and do the entire job over.
must also be defined. In the case of bel- tabular form. As the old saying goes, the only winners
lows, the various spring rates and the Support types and support loads are were the lawyers. A pipe stress analysis
weight of the bellows must be entered. In often a big cost factor for both the pipe at the bid stage would have benefited
the case of valves, the weight and location fabricator and the general contractor. both the contractor and the pharmaceu-
of the center of gravity are required The pipe design process determines the tical company. n
inputs. The program accounts for all of types of supports and the output file
these factors. gives the loads associated with each pipe
As each support node is defined, the support.
type of support must be specified. The A bill of materials is an additional
type, quantity and location of supports benefit derived from using pipe stress
has a major effect on the piping system analysis software. The program will scan
so these must be defined with as much the entire system and add up all the
forethought as possible. various pipe diameters, fittings, valves,
bellows, etc. and give the totals. In addi-
Iterative solution tion, the total weights of the various
Contrary to what some may have assu- diameters of pipe and of the various fit-
med, finite element programs, including tings are given. When done by hand, it is

48 RElNNlRCEDplastics October 2002