نوع مقاله : علمی - پژوهشی
عنوان مقاله English
نویسندگان English
Protective concrete coatings are used to reduce damage to subsea pipelines; however, corrosion of steel mesh and the limited crack-control capability of conventional concrete may reduce their performance. In this study, polypropylene fiber-reinforced concrete (PFRC) was experimentally and numerically investigated as an alternative protective coating. The experimental program comprised nine pipeline specimens in three configurations: uncoated steel pipes (SP), plain concrete-coated pipes (PCP), and polypropylene fiber-reinforced concrete-coated pipes (FCP). The concrete coating was 40 mm thick, and the PFRC mixture contained 2 kg of polypropylene fibers per cubic meter of concrete. The mechanical properties of standard concrete specimens were determined through mechanical testing, and their surface strain fields were investigated using Digital Image Correlation (DIC). The pipeline specimens were subjected to displacement-controlled transverse quasi-static loading, and their structural responses were evaluated using force–displacement curves. Subsequently, a validated nonlinear finite element model was used to analyze impact behavior at energy levels ranging from 450 to 5000 J. The quasi-static transverse loading tests showed that the peak load of FCP was approximately 20% and 147% higher than those of PCP and SP, respectively. The energy absorption capacity of FCP was also approximately 66.1% higher than that of PCP. DIC analysis indicated delayed crack initiation and a more distributed strain field in fiber-reinforced concrete. The maximum discrepancies between the numerical and experimental results were 6.31% for peak load and 5.21% for the corresponding displacement. At an impact energy of 5000 J, FCP exhibited approximately 47% lower maximum displacement and 89.4% higher average resisting force than PCP. The results indicate that PFRC can improve the load-carrying capacity, crack control, post-cracking behavior, energy absorption, and deformation resistance of subsea pipelines under transverse quasi-static and low-velocity impact loading.
کلیدواژهها English