Short-Term Mechanical Analysis of Polyethylene Pipe Reinforced by Winding Steel Wires Using Steel Wire Spiral Structural Finite Element Model

Polyethylene pipe reinforced by winding steel wires (PSP) is new type of polymer-matrix composite pipe, which is widely used in petroleum, chemical engineering, and water supply, etc. PSP is composed of a thermoplastic core pipe (HDPE), an outer cover layer (HDPE), and steel wire skeleton sandwiched in the middle. The steel wire skeleton is formed by crossly winding steel wires integrated with HDPE matrix by cohesive resin. In traditional analysis models of PSP, components of PSP were considered linear elastic, and steel wire skeleton was assumed to be orthotropic composite layer based on the classical laminated plate theory. Although achieving good results in engineering applications, traditional models neglected the material nonlinearity of steel wires and HDPE matrix, which was significant to failure analysis. In the present paper, a new finite element model was constructed using commercial software ABAQUS[1], based on the actual steel wire spiral structure of PSP. Steel wires and HDPE matrix were modeled separately, which were both represented by solid elements, and the interaction between steel wires and HDPE was characterized by tie interaction. Experimental result of short-term burst pressure of PSP was used to validate the nonlinear model. Compared with the experimental result, the calculation results of the nonlinear model agreed well. Furthermore, the effect of the nonlinear material property of components on the calculation results were investigated, and the short-term mechanical responses of PSP were determined and analyzed through the nonlinear model.