Passive external thermal insulation is an important contributor in the armory of flow assurance tools. Such systems provide a sound baseline of thermal performance on which other systems and strategies can be based. With the steady increase in requirements for thermal efficiency for subsea flowlines and tie-backs there is a driving force to exploit existing systems to their utmost. For thermal insulation systems this means reducing the thermal conductivity as far as possible whilst maintaining mechanical integrity under hydrostatic loads. For blown foams and syntactic systems this means reducing the density of the material. For syntactic systems one strategy that immediately comes to mind is to increase the loading of glass microspheres in the binder matrix. Attempts have been made within this field, and materials with interesting thermophysical properties have been produced. When subjected to hydrostatic loadings and especially at temperature, the imperfect packing of the polydisperse microspheres in such materials leads to close interaction between adjacent microballoons and the creation of point loads. The result of this is that the materials ultimately become sensitive to pressure, and the ultimate compressive strength is reduced. The current paper will discuss the effects of microsphere tolerances and microsphere loading on ultimate hydrostatic capacity and will illuminate the connection between glass content, system thickness and on-pipe thermophysical properties under operational conditions with background in extensive simulated service and triaxial compression testing.
On the effect of increasing microballoon loadings on thermal and hydrostatic performance of glass syntactic polyurethanes
2007
10 Seiten, 14 Bilder
Conference paper
English
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