ASTM D2990 Flexural Creep

Testing of CIPP Liner Materials

Author: Steve Ferry

Background
In discussing material property testing, it is sometimes best to start with definitions of the
various parameters involved. Over the course of this article, we will discuss stress, strain,
flexural modulus, and creep (in particular, flexural creep).
Roarks Formulas for Stress and Strain defines stress as the internal force exerted by
either of two adjacent parts of a body upon the other across an imagined plane of
separation and strain is defined as any forced change in the dimensions of a body.
The equations for calculation of flexural stress and strain can be obtained directly from
ASTM D790, Standard Test Methods for Flexural Properties of Unreinforced and
Reinforced Plastics and Electrical Insulating Materials with mathematical formulae as
follows:
Flexural Stress (Strength) = 3PL/2bd2 and Flexural Strain = 6Dd/ L2.
Thus, with any modulus generally accepted to be the rate of change of unit stress with
respect to unit strain, the mathematical formula for flexural modulus of elasticity is:
EB = L3m/4 bd3.
For all of these equations, the calculated stress is defined to be at the outer fibers at
midspan, P is the load, L is the support span, b and d are the width and depth of the beam
specimen respectively, D is the midspan deflection, and m is the slope of the tangent to
the initial straight-line portion of the load-deflection curve. The rate of straining as
described within ASTM D790 Procedure A is 0.01 in/in/min, or 1% per minute. These
tests are typically run to 5% strain, or approximately 5 minutes per test specimen.
Within the product specification ASTM D5813, Standard Specification for Cured-InPlace Thermosetting Resin Sewer Piping Systems, the test protocol for the determination
of flexural strength and tangent flexural modulus and the product requirements are well
defined. Specifically, ASTM D790 Test Method I-Procedure A is called out, with
minimum flexural strength of 4,500 psi and minimum flexural modulus of 250,000 psi
required.
Roark defines creep as continuous increase in deformation under constant or decreasing
stress. Additionally, creep is defined within ASTM D883, Standard Terminology
Relating to Plastics, as the time-dependent part of strain resulting from stress. Note

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ASTM D2990 Flexural Creep

Testing of CIPP Liner Materials

that within ASTM D5813 there is no mention of creep, either from a product requirement
or test method perspective. However, creep is mentioned within ASTM F1216, Standard
Practice for Rehabilitation of Existing Pipelines and Conduits by the Inversion and
Curing of a Resin-Impregnated Tube in vague terms in Note A of Table 1 CIPP Initial
Structural Properties as long-term structural properties, and also in the appendix X1.
Design Considerations as EL = long-term (time corrected) modulus of elasticity for CIPP,
psi.
Flexural Creep Testing of CIPP Materials
At this stage in the product specification and installation practice, a breakdown occurs in
the instructions to testing laboratories as to how to test and calculate creep resistance of
CIPP materials. Currently, there are no details to this process contained within any
ASTM document. [Microbac] adheres to the requirements of D2990 wherever
applicable, but in general, the testing performed would be considered a limited D2990
protocol in that only one set of five specimens is tested through 10,000 hours duration at
23C. This agrees with the verbiage of ASTM D2990 Section 10, Selection of Test
Conditions, specifically Section 10.1 Test Temperatures-Selection of temperatures for
creep and creep-rupture testing depends on the intended use of the test results and shall
be made as follows: (sub-referencing) Section 10.1.2: To obtain design data, the test
temperatures and environment shall be the same as those of the intended end-use
application.
However, one of the main items required for creep testing the imposed flexural stress at
the start of the creep exposure is not defined in any of the relevant documents. There
exists some guidance in the international literature indicating that an imposed stress equal
to 0.25% of the short-term flexural modulus is to be used. Note that this would
correspond to the stress required to impose 0.25% initial strain in the test specimens.
This 0.25% test criterion is contained within a now-unavailable British Water Research
Council fiberglass pipe rehabilitation product specification (with embedded test
methods).
Creep is typically performed in accordance with ASTM D2990, Standard Test Methods
for Tensile, Compressive, and Flexural Creep and Creep-Rupture of Plastics. The basic
equipment is quite simple, consisting of a rack to hold the specimens in 3 point flexure,
dial indicators to measure deflection at mid-span, and deadweights to load the specimens
at mid-span. The testing is performed at constant stress (load), and must be maintained at
the prescribed environmental conditions (temperature and humidity) throughout the
10,000 hour duration of the test. Deflections are measured periodically, with moduli
calculated using the initial stress and the mid-span deflection at each time period.

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ASTM D2990 Flexural Creep

Testing of CIPP Liner Materials

Per D2990, log strain in percent versus log time in hours is required to be reported,
although Microbac typically also reports all raw data, modulus versus time for each
individual specimen, and a log/log plot of the average of all specimens tested at identical
conditions.
Flexural Creep Data Interpretation
While numerous data presentation methodologies are given in D2990 Appendix X4, since
the creep testing performed is at a single stress and temperature, a simplified approach is
sufficient. A single, linear extrapolation to 50-year service life, similar to what is
portrayed within Appendix X7.1, using standard trend-line analysis such as that
contained within Microsoft Excel, is used. However, based upon experience gained in
extrapolation of hydrostatic design basis data sets for pressure pipe, and since knees are
sometimes encountered in the test data, only the most linear portion of the log/log plot is
used for the extrapolation (See Figures 1 and 2 in .pdf download).
There are two ways for design engineers to use this data. The first is to take a creep
reduction approach whereby the 50-year extrapolated modulus is divided by the shortterm D790 modulus, resulting in a percentage reduction. The second is to evaluate the
50-year modulus in comparison to some minimum requirement, such as 125,000 psi. In
my opinion, the second approach is more typical of a material science-based design
approach, and does not unduly penalize a material which may have significantly higher
starting modulus, but larger creep response.
Microbac has performed creep tests with imposed stresses as low as 400 psi, and as high
as approximately 2,000 psi in the past. It was previously reported to Microbac that this
400 psi value was based upon a maximum hydrostatic head (external pressure) design
approach.
The Current Research Assignment
Microbac conducted creep testing on one material, an unsaturated polyester resin with
felt laminate (approximately 6mm in thickness). The sample was tested at imposed initial
flexural stress levels of 400 psi, 1250 psi, and 0.25% of the short-term modulus of the
material. Upon completion of approximately 2,000 hours of testing, the retained creep
modulus at the 50-year intercept was evaluated to determine if imposed stress had a
significant factor on the retained modulus. For the material tested, which displayed
short-term flexural properties of 6,873 psi maximum flexural strength and 662,700 psi
flexural modulus, the initial imposed flexural stresses correspond to approximately 6% to
24% of the short term flexural strength (See Figure 3 in .pdf download).

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ASTM D2990 Flexural Creep

Testing of CIPP Liner Materials

Simple inspection of these results would indicate that for a wide range of imposed
stresses, the 50-year retained moduli as calculated using trendline analysis in these
D2990 data sets are not significantly different.

For more information, please contact: microbac_info@microbac.com

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2011 Microbac Laboratories, Inc.