FIRE SIMULATIONS OF A FISHING RESEARCH VESSEL WITH FRP STRUCTURES

The fire safety effect of using fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) as the primary construction material in a fishing research vessel was studied by fire simulations. The effect of FRP structures on fire development was assessed by comparing the simulated gas temperatures and potential heat releases with FRP and steel structures. The structural integrity of FRP structures was assessed using simulated temperatures of the structures as indicators of integrity. The effect of protective mineral wool and intumescent coating layers was also quantified. The results showed that despite the protection, the structural integrity of FRP bulkheads could be compromised in fire conditions. Mineral wool was found to be better protection than the intumescent coating: it can either prevent or postpone the pyrolysis of the FRP bulkhead, depending on the fire exposure

Fire simulations of a fishing research vessel with FRP structures

The fire safety effect of using fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) as the primary construction material in a fishing research vessel was studied by fire simulations. The effect of FRP structures on fire development was assessed by comparing the simulated gas temperatures and potential heat releases with FRP and steel structures. The structural integrity of FRP structures was assessed using simulated temperatures of the structures as indicators of integrity. The effect of protective mineral wool and intumescent coating layers was also quantified. The results showed that despite the protection, the structural integrity of FRP bulkheads could be compromised in fire conditions. Mineral wool was found to be better protection than the intumescent coating: it can either prevent or postpone the pyrolysis of the FRP bulkhead, depending on the fire exposure.</p

A new computational method for the assessment of the passive fire protection applied to a composite containership

The current paradigm in ship design is focused in producing ships that are more environmental friendly. Lightweight or advanced materials are the perfect candidate to make ship transportation more efficient, however the current state-of-the-art is in demand of novel techniques that aid in the design of marine composite structures when exposed to fire. This paper aims to describe a technique that couples a fire dynamic simulator with a thermo-mechanical tool specialised in the calculus of laminated FRP structures, the application can be extended to other areas of engineering as well. An application of the technique is illustrated in the analysis of one of the decks of the superstructure of a Panamax containership where a fire has ignited and the active fire protection system is disabled. A second objective addressed in this paper is the discussion of the misconception that composites, although outperforming steel in several mechanical aspects, show a substantial lower thermo-mechanical performance. The research conducted here shows that composite are advantageous from the thermal point of view, and certainly have benefits in their thermo-structural response, specially when the life of human beings is under consideration.Preprin

Comparison of numerical and computational aspects between two constraint-based contact methods in the description of wheel/rail contacts

Abstract The numerical and computation aspects of the Knife-edge Equivalent Contact (KEC) constraint and lookup table (LUT) methods are compared in this paper. The LUT method implementation uses a penetration-based elastic contact model for the flange and a constraint-based formulation at the wheel tread. For the KEC method, where an infinitely narrow rail contacts an equivalent wheel, regularization of the tread-flange transition is adopted to simultaneously account for tread and flange contacts using constraints. A comparison between the two methods is carried out using well-known numerical integrators to show the applicability and limitations of both methods. Two fixed-step-size integrators, the explicit Runge–Kutta (RK4) and the predictor–corrector Adam–Bashforth–Moulton (ABM) methods, and two variable-step-size Matlab built-in function integrators, the explicit ode45 and implicit ode15s, were applied to get the numerical solutions to the dynamic problems and study the relative numerical performance of the two contact description methods. To complete the railway vehicle model, both contact methods were implemented for the multibody model of a benchmark railway vehicle (the Manchester wagon 1). Numerical results were obtained for different railway tracks with and without irregularities. Profiles of the S1002 wheel and LB-140-Area rail, which demonstrate the two-point contact phenomenon, were considered. Both methods were implemented in Matlab and validated against commercial simulation software. The kinematic results for both approaches show good agreement, but the KEC method was up to 20% more efficient than the LUT method regardless of integrator used