Multiaxial fatigue/static test machine for large fibre-wound plastic pipes

The first part of this paper is concerned with the design, development and control of a machine built to test 70 and 50 mm diameter fibre-wound plastic pipes in various combinations of stress and with the capacity for varying the test environment. Provision was made to both grip and seal the specimen up to the ultimate burst strength of the pipe even though the pipe had failed functionally through seepage.The second part of this paper gives details, graphs and some data from the final proving and initial test programmes on glass wound polyester resin pipes.These tests were the first in a programme which was used to characterise the failure behaviour of fibre-reinforced pipes and also to investigate the importance of loading path on the ultimate failure behaviour.