• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.168-174
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• 2020

Recently, the size of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) carriers has been increasing, in turn increasing the load generated during operation. To handle this load, the thickness of LNG Cargo Containment Systems (CCSs) should be increased. Despite increasing the thickness of LNG CCSs, a secondary barrier is still used in conventional thickness. Therefore, the mechanical performance of the existing secondary barrier should be verified. In this study, tensile test of the secondary barrier was performed to evaluate mechanical properties under several low- and cryogenic-temperature conditions considering LNG environment, and in each fiber direction considering that the secondary barrier is composed of anisotropic composite materials depending on the glass fibers. Additionally, the coefficient of thermal expansion was measured by considering the degradation of the mechanical properties of the secondary barrier caused by the generated thermal stress during periodical unloading. As a result, the mechanical performance of secondary barrier in the Machine Direction (MD) was generally found to be superior than that in the Transverse Direction (TD) owing to the warp interlock structure of the glass fibers.