Investigating the Effectiveness of a Composite Patch on Repairing Pipes Subjected to Circumferential Cracks under Combined Loadings

The purpose of this study is to investigate bending moment and the axial load capacity of a pressurized pipe suffering from a through-wall circumferential crack repaired by a composite sleeve. The three-dimensional finite element method (FEM) was adopted to compute the results, and the failure assessment diagram (FAD) was employed to investigate the failure behavior of the repaired pipe. The findings revealed that, for the investigated range of applied loads and angles of the crack, the interaction of brittle and ductile failure modes is negligible. Additionally, the yield strength of the cracked pipe was considered as reference stress to achieve a conservative design. Two cases of the combined loading state consisting of internal pressure/bending moment and internal pressure/axial tensile force were investigated. Repairing the crack under combined loadings using carbon-epoxy composites was studied where the influences of various parameters, including internal pressure, crack angle, and the composite patch thickness on the capacity of the cracked pipe to withstand bending moment and axial load were included. The results indicated that the bending moment and axial load capacities of the cracked pipe depend on internal pressure, crack angle, and the composite patch thickness; nevertheless, the crack angle is the main parameter. A composite sleeve can increase both bending moment and axial load capacity of the cracked pipe, but bending moment can be increased further than axial load. Using the composite patch to repair the cracked pipe caused the bending moment capacity to improve from 14.28% to 120%. On the other hand, the composite patch raised the axial load capacity from 5.1% to 93.5%. Additionally, an increase in the composite patch thickness caused the axial load capacity to extend more than bending load capacity.