| EPSRC Reference: |
GR/L06553/01 |
| Title: |
A FLUID-STRUCTURE INTERACTION MODEL FOR AVOIDING CATASTROPHIC FAILURE OF PRESSURISED PLASTICPIPE |
| Principal Investigator: |
Ivankovic, Professor A |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Project Partners: |
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| Department: |
Mechanical Engineering |
| Organisation: |
Imperial College London |
| Scheme: |
Standard Research (Pre-FEC) |
| Starts: |
01 March 1997 |
Ends: |
31 July 2000 |
Value (£): |
246,631
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Materials Characterisation |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
| Manufacturing |
Transport Systems and Vehicles |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
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Most gas and water distribution pipe is now extruded from advanced, extremely tough grades of polyethylene. Nevertheless, these materials may under certain conditions be susceptible to 'Rapid Crack Propagation', whereby a crack initiated in a pipeline above a critical pressure continues to 'unzip' it for an indefinite distance. Incidents have been extremely rare, but avoiding them remains a high priority for gas and water utilities. Because full-scale tests are extremely expensive, new pipe system standards will specify a critical pressure using the small-scale 'S4' test, and an imminent European project will experimentally determine an S4-to-full-scale correlation. However, no existing computational model can reliably extend the range of such a correlation. The effect of varying 'backfill' (soil bedding) conditions is of particular concern, but the required tests are prohibitively expensive. Computationally, this problem, involving dynamic interaction of a non-linearly elastic pipe wall with contained fluid and quasi-fluid backfill, is extremely demanding. The proposal is to develop an efficient, unified finite-volume model, backed by an experimental study of backfill effects. The model will serve as a paradigm for a wider class of fluid-structure interaction problems, and for more general, interdisciplinary ('multi-physics') field problems.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
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| Date Materialised |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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| Project URL: |
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.imperial.ac.uk |