Comprehensive analyses of syntactic foam behaviour in deepwater environment

Type Article
Date 2009-03
Language English
Author(s) Grosjean Francois1, Bouchonneau Nadege1, 2, Choqueuse Dominique2, Sauvant-Moynot Valerie1
Affiliation(s) 1 : Inst Francais Petr Lyon, F-69360 Solaize, France.
2 : IFREMER, Ctr Brest, F-29280 Plouzane, France.
Source Journal of Materials Science (0022-2461) (Springer), 2009-03 , Vol. 44 , N. 6 , P. 1462-1468
DOI 10.1007/s10853-008-3166-0
WOS© Times Cited 40
Abstract Over the past 10 years, numerous studies were performed to better understand the behaviour of the glass syntactic foams used as thermal insulation of pipes for deepwater production. The obtained results outlined some specific behaviour of polymeric syntactic foams reinforced by glass microballoons in service conditions: both water uptake and mechanical stress have a key impact on thermal properties. This article focuses first on the wet behaviour of glass syntactic foams. The effect of water is investigated to better model the nature of water diffusing in syntactic foams with and without a topcoat protection. Secondly, the effect of hydrostatic pressure on coated structure is addressed by using a confined compression test. As polymer material is bonded to the steel surface, it is not submitted to pure hydrostatic loading but to non-spherical loading in the vicinity of the pipe. The confined compression test is then chosen to represent these non-spherical loadings of material. The rupture of glass microballoons is monitored by acoustic emission for different matrices and attempts are made to quantify the resulting acoustic emission signals by comparison with prior tomography results. These experimental analyses provide a better understanding of the main factors affecting the functional properties of syntactic foams.
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