Effect of Grain Distribution on Resin Consumption and Mechanical Performance of GRP Pipes

It was aimed to produce glass fiber reinforced pipes (GRP), having less resin consumption andhigher mechanical properties by changing the grain distribution of fillers used in the coreregion. American Foundry Society (AFS) grain fineness number currently used in GRP pipeproduction, and the grain distribution determined to the Fuller equation, the exponent of whichis 0.8 (F 0.8), were used in the study. Chopped glass fibers, unsaturated polyester resin, andsilica filler were used. It was manufactured three GRP pipes having 6 m length and nominaldiameter (DN) of 350 mm by centrifugal casting technique. Initial specific ring stiffness andlongitudinal tensile strength (LTS) tests were conducted on GRP pipes. After the longitudinaltensile tests of the produced GRP pipes, SEM images were taken from the core region and themorphological analyzes of the images were made. As a result of the study, when GRP pipesare produced incorporating 14 % less body resin in F 0.8 grain distribution, 44.11 % higherstiffness and 50.4 % higher LTS was obtained than the minimum value required in the standard.

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