Glass fabric-reinforced composites are the main insulating material components of the secondary barrier of cargo containment systems (CCSs), because they prevent liquefied natural gas (LNG) leakage during transport. Nevertheless, it is difficult to evaluate the material performance of glass fabric-reinforced composites at cryogenic temperatures (-163 °C) because it takes approximately 7 days to prepare the test specimens and because the slip-based test frequently fails. Although glass fabric-reinforced composites for the secondary barrier of LNG CCSs show various structural vulnerabilities, enhancing their material performance is significantly limited owing to the reasons mentioned above. This study evaluated the structural vulnerabilities and failure characteristics of glass fabric-reinforced composites by using the slip-prevention test method to determine the level difference and adhesive vacancies. The failure surface and the thermal expansion of the composites were also observed, to analyze their mechanical characteristics. By adopting our proposed test procedure, the failure rate of the experiment decreased by approximately 80%, and the sample preparation time for manufacturing was significantly shortened, to 1 day.
Keywords: LNG cargo containment system; cryogenic reliability; flexible secondary barrier.