Effect of Grain Distribution on Resin Consumption and Mechanical Performance of GRP Pipes

Abstract

It was aimed to produce GRP pipes, having less resin consumption and higher mechanical properties by changing the grain distribution of fillers used in the core region. American Foundry Society (AFS) grain fineness number currently used in GRP pipe production, and the grain distribution determined to the Fuller equation, the exponent of which is 0.8 (F0.8), were used in the study. Chopped glass fibers, unsaturated polyester resin, and silica filler were used. It was manufactured three GRP pipes having 6m length and nominal diameter (DN) of 350mm by centrifugal casting technique. Initial specific ring stiffness and longitudinal tensile strength (LTS) tests were conducted on GRP pipes. After the longitudinal tensile tests of the produced GRP pipes, SEM images were taken from the core region and the morphological analyzes of the images were made. As a result of the study, when GRP pipes are produced using 14% less resin in F0.8 grain distribution, 44.11% higher stiffness and 50.4% higher LTS was obtained than the minimum value required in the standard.

Keywords

• GRP pipe
• filler
• grain distribution
• AFS grain fineness number
• Fuller equation

Supporting Institution

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK)

Project Number

5140058

Thanks

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) and like to thank Superlit Pipe Industry Inc. for carrying out GRP pipe productions.

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