A Numerical Study on Steel Tubes Wrapped with CFRP Laminates: Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers Applications on Offshore Marine Structures

摘要

Natural events in the oceans and seas have always created different special conditions. Hence, most marine structures such as jacket type platforms are always under several load combinations. Moreover, members performance is impaired and they sustain severe damage due to member deterioration and fatigue failures, which are frequent in these structures. Dynamic flexural loading is one of the cases that causes the section fatigue, which gradually weakens the member. Consequently, one of the most suitable solutions that can be done to prevent the deterioration of steel tubes is to cover them with fibre-reinforced polymers, which has recently gained popularity. In this article, the strengthening and retrofitting of steel tubes by wrapping multi-layered CFRP laminates is investigated by a numerical approach. The ABAQUS finite element software is utilized for modelling and further studies. The results were verified by former experimental researches. The resulting graphs and figures show that CFRP laminates, improved the mechanical behaviour of steel tubes such as strength and stiffness.