Oceans play a major role in regulating the Earth’s climate. More especially, they mitigate the impacts
induced by global warming as they absorb and store most of the heat, however up to a certain point. A
change in water temperatures is now witnessed and this needs to be carefully monitored and
understood. Nonetheless, more than 70% of the oceans still remains unexplored and to overcome this,
specific exploration devices are needed. At Ifremer, the use of pressure vessels for marine
exploration has been the subject of many studies on both metallic and composite structures. The latter
has received significant interest over the last two decades as these are much lighter than their metallic
counterparts. These composite structures are mostly manufactured using filament winding. Different
studies concerning the optimization of the laying sequence were performed to increase the implosion
pressures and different material systems were investigated over the years. However, very few
studies were focused on the long-term behaviour of these composite cylinders and more especially
creep. During exploration at a given depth, creep is a major issue that needs to be addressed. The aim
of the current study is to be able to predict the long-term creep behaviour of composite cylinders
immersed at 6000 meters
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