EFFECT OF THE INTERNAL FLUID FLOW IN THE GLASS FIBRE REINFORCED PLASTIC (GFRP) DYNAMIC

The petroleum produced by the offshore platforms is transported to processing plant through carbon steel pipelines. Usually, expectancy of maximum production capacity of pipelines is never meeting the prediction made in the early stage. Among the main reason for the declining of production capacity of pipelines over time is corrosion. This project aims to prove the dynamic of glass fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP) pipe dynamic is better than steel pipes dynamic in oil pipelines. Whilst it is more common to see in Oil and Gas industry to utilize steel pipes in their pipelines, GFRP pipes show a promising future to reduce corrosion problems. When it comes to pipeline, corrosion had caused severe to production capacity of a line to replace the corroded pipelines will cost a lot of money. The industries are desperate to alternative for the steel pipes. With that in mind, this Final Year Project will be focused more on study of the dynamic behavior of glass fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP) pipe fluid flow properties. A pipe modeling will be created to study the effect of the internal fluid flow in the GFRP pipe and compare it with the steel pipes dynamic. The model will be constructed using the ANSYS Workbench software and it will be analyzed using ANSYS FLUENT. The fluid flow model will be created using the k-epsilon model and all the calculation and iteration will be calculated using second order upwind. This project may lead to explore a better option than steel pipes to use in the oil and gas industry.