Comparative study of composite and steel sleeve crack arrestors for mitigating running ductile fracture in CO2 pipelines using fluid-structure interaction analyses

Abstract

Running ductile fracture is a severe failure mode of dense-phase carbon dioxide (CO₂) pipelines due to the sustained high crack-driving force associated with CO₂ decompression. Crack arrestors have emerged as a viable option for fracture control; externally mounted steel and fiber reinforced composite sleeve arrestors are particularly suited for retrofitting purposes. This study develops a validated fluid–structure interaction (FSI) framework based on the coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian method to systematically investigate the performance of steel and composite sleeve arrestors in CO₂ pipelines. A high-fidelity three-dimensional numerical model is constructed in Abaqus/Explicit to couple crack propagation with CO₂ decompression. The Johnson–Cook model is used to characterize fracture in steel; the intralaminar fiber–matrix damage in the composite is modeled using the Hashin criterion, and interfacial debonding in the adhesive layer is modeled using a cohesive zone model. The GERG-2008 equation of state is adopted to model the thermodynamic behavior of CO₂ decompression under isentropic, homogeneous equilibrium assumptions. Parametric analyses are performed to examine the influence of the sleeve material, geometric attributes, fitting conditions, and bonding configuration on the effectiveness of crack arrestors. This work contributes to a mechanistic understanding of sleeve-based crack arrestors and demonstrates the utility of advanced FSI modeling in guiding the deployment and optimization of fracture control strategies for CO₂ pipeline systems.