Magma Global has developed m-pipe®, a high performance pipe built from a thermoplastic matrix and carbon fibre, designed for use in subsea oil and gas applications to offer a high pressure and sour service capability. Managing the qualification of such a disruptive technology is a unique challenge. Magma must demonstrate reliability to our customers and to the regulators. There is little prior art that applies directly and so Magma is following the guiding principles in the recent DNVGL RP-F119 "Recommended practice for thermoplastic composite pipe" [1] together with the risk based approach in DNVGL-RP-A203 "Qualification of new technology" [2]. We discuss our approach to: 1. Identify design and qualification standards. 2. Develop tests to evaluate material behaviour at the coupon level in simulated oilfield environments. 3. Develop an FEA based design tool to predict structural performance of pipes based on material properties tested on coupons. 4. Correlate simulations to structural testing of pipes. We hope the paper will be useful to anyone in the oil and gas community who is interested in developing composite materials and ensuring qualification for subsea applications.
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