Fracture Control
Fracture control has been one of the Energy Pipeline CRC flagship research areas, with strong international recognition.
Researchers at the University of Wollongong focussed on:
• New methods for fracture control in small diameter natural gas and other energy fluid pipelines;
• Accurate numerical models of Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) during running ductile fracture as an alternative to full-scale testing; and
• New improved fracture velocity model that incorporates the effect of the material ductility (Y/T ratio) on the fracture propagation velocity.
The EPDECOM fracture arrest software was one of the significant outcomes of this research. EPDECOM is a modern fracture control application for the control of running ductile fracture integrating a gas decompression model and a fracture propagation model to estimate the minimum required toughness based on the Battelle Two-Curve Method.
Fracture Control
- RP3-02A - Modelling of Decompression Waves – Completed
- RP3-02C - Fracture Simulation for Gas Pipelines – Completed
- RP3-02E - Decompression Velocities in Rich Gas Mixtures – Completed
- RP3-02F - Coupled Model for Fracture Propagation - In Progress
- RP3-02I - Fracture Control Software – Completed
- RP3-02J - Fracture Simulation - Phase II - In Progress
- RP3-08 - Dense Phase Decompression - In Progress
- RP3-09 - Charpy Testing Machine - In Progress
- RP6.3-07- Fluid Structure Interaction Modelling- In Progress
