Behaviour of a Birch Plywood under Various Experimental Conditions

Liquid Natural Gaz -LNG- carriers must provide cryogenic reliability and safety for at least 40 years. Most of the insulation systems belong to the so-called membrane type, in which the “insulation complex” is composed of a metal membrane as a barrier, a plywood panel, insulation foam and a plywood panel glued to the inner hull. During construction and exploitation at cryogenic temperature, an impact of the membrane may occur and could lead to a LNG leakage. In order to evaluate this risk, and the role of the plywood in the perforation process of the membrane, a series of original impact tests are carried out at room and cryogenic temperatures on metal-plywood samples thanks to a specially designed catapult. In order to obtain a reliable numerical simulation of the impact, a series of impact and out of plane compression tests at room and cryogenic temperatures are carried out. Thanks to a design experiment, we identified the influence of the moisture content, from 2% up to 30%, and of the temperature, from − 173 ∘C up to +20 ∘C, on the strain rate sensitivity of the plywood.