Numerical and Experimental Study of Reinforced Composite Vessels with Hoop Stiffeners under External Hydrostatic Pressure

Because of the high ratio of strength to weight, composite vessels are widely used in maritime and aerospace industries. The way of composite vessels breaking under hydrostatic pressure is assignable by paying attention to the geometry and material's properties. In composite vessels, using of composite stiffeners has high complexity in manufacturing process. On the other hand, due to the low young's modulus of composite materials, usually cannot use of the materials as a stiffener. In this research, effects of using hoop stiffeners on buckling pressure of composite bodies have been studied. In this paper, mechanical manner of a composite body is studied by Finite Element Method (FEM) in two statuses (with metal stiffener and without metal stiffener). According to results, using of a metal hoop stiffener that has 3.6 percents of the composite body weight increases buckling pressure up to 25 percents. Based on results increasing the buckling pressure of composite bodies by mounting steel hoop stiffeners added lower weight to the suite from increasing of thickness of bodies. For verification of numerical results, a composite vessel of GRP (Glass Reinforced Polymer), reinforced by a hoop stiffener mounted on inner surface has been experimentally under hydrostatic pressure to the breaking step. Finally, it was broken by 16 bar pressure. The results showed that the estimated pressure of software has a little difference with the experimental estimation that represents high accuracy of modeling process in the research.