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ABSTRACT
Spiral weld pipes are used extensively in the gas and oil industries. Compared to the
longitudinal seam pipes, the spiral weld pipes can be manufactured straighter, rounder, longer
and with more uniform stress distribution and higher rigidity. However, because of the longer
weld line these pipes are more susceptible to damage due to the growth of cracks and defects
which exist or are generated in the weldment area. Therefore, it is important to investigate the
integrity and the remaining service life for the defected spiral weld pipes. Due to the arbitrary
orientation of cracks and application of various external loads in spiral pipes, these pipes
experience complex state of stress and deformation. In such cases, crack growth may occur
under any combination of shear and tensile loads in the cracked area. In this paper, the
application of a fracture criterion called the maximum hoop stress (MHS) criterion is
described for predicting the integrity of cracked spiral weld pipes. This criterion can evaluate
both the direction of fracture initiation and the final sustainable load of gas and oil pipes
containing crack. The failure design curve which is presented in this paper for different
loading types and crack orientations can be used for failure assessment of cracked spiral weld
pipes or other similar engineering applications.
Key words: spiral weld pipes, crack, brittle fracture, engineering analysis.
Introduction
Petroleum products such as oil and gas are very often transported by means of
pipelines. There are three major types of pipelines for transporting oil and gas:
gathering lines, transmission lines and distribution lines. Gas or crude oil gathering
lines are used between a well and a processing plant or collection point. The gathering
lines are often relatively small-diameter lines and operate at a variety of pressures.
The transmission pipelines transport natural gas, natural gas liquids, liquid petroleum
products, crude oil etc. These are often made of steel pipes welded together and
interrupted only by valves, compression stations (for gas lines) or pumping stations
(for liquid lines). The third type of pipeline is a gas-distribution line that mainly
transports natural gas within cities.
There are several techniques for manufacturing steel pipes. The longitudinally welded
pipes and the spiral welded pipes are two major types of pipe manufacturing
techniques. The longitudinally welded pipes can be manufactured with two main
processes of double submerged arc welds and electric-resistance welds. The spiral
weld pipes are used extensively by the petroleum industry, for oil and gas lines, for
low-pressure steam lines, etc. They are also used in other industries for high- and low1
pressure water lines, vacuum lines, exhaust-steam lines, low-pressure air lines, sand
and gravel conveying and similar services. However, under the applied loads such as
the internal gas pressure or the soil pressure in the case of buried pipes, these pipes
can be susceptible to damage and fracture due to extension of cracks, flaws and
defects which are found in the weldment area. The main purpose of this research is to
study the integrity and load bearing capacity of spiral weld pipes. Therefore, more
details of manufacturing process and faults detected in this type of pipes are described
in the next sections. Then application of a damage criterion for failure assessment of
defected spiral weld pipes under complex service loads is investigated.
assessment procedure for cases where cracks are found in the welding strip in spiral
weld pipes.
Welding material
Mode II (shearing)
Mode I (opening)
Fig. 3: A typical crack in the weld material subjected to mixed mode I (opening) mode II (shearing) loads.
oop
m ax
ck
cr a
Shear
In this section a well-known theory called the maximum hoop stress (MHS) criterion
is described. The criterion can be used for studying brittle fracture in spiral weld pipes
containing cracks. According to this criterion, a crack subjected to mixed mode
(tension-shear) loading will propagate from the crack tip in a radial direction o when
the maximum value of hoop stress along this direction reaches a critical stress level.
Schematic representation of this criterion is presented in Fig. 4.
Tension
Fig. 4: Schematic representation of MHS criterion for predicting mixed mode brittle
fracture.
The hoop stress distribution near the crack tip can be written by an infinite series
expansion as [8]:
hoop = ( r , ) =
144444424444443
1
(1)
singular terms
where r and are the conventional polar coordinates. KI and KII are the stress
intensity factors (SIF). By ignoring the effects of higher order terms near the crack tip,
the direction of crack growth can be determined from:
= 0
cos
0
2
[K
sin 0 + K
(3 cos
< 0
(2)
0 1 )] = 0
By solving Eq. (2) for any combinations of mode I and mode II, the angle o can be
found from the following equation:
0 = arccos
3 tan 2 + 1 + 8 tan 2
1 + 9 tan 2
= arctan
K II
KI
(3)
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
-1
( 2/ ) tan (K I / K II )
1.0
(pure mode I)
Fig. 5: Fracture initiation angle for any combinations of mixed mode I/II based on the
MHS criterion.
For pure mode I fracture (i.e. when KI = KIc, KII = 0 and 0 = 0), Eq. (3) is reduced to:
c =
1
2 r
Kc
c 2 r = K c
(4)
where KIc is the pure mode I fracture toughness and c is the critical value of hoop
stress. Both KIc and c are assumed to be the material properties. Once the angle of
fracture initiation o is determined from Eq. (3) by replacing Eq. (4) into Eq. (1) the
load bearing capacity of cracked body subjected to mixed mode loading is evaluated
based on the hypothesis of MHS criterion:
K c = cos
K cos
2
0
2
K sin 0
2
(5)
According to the MHS criterion when the right hand side of Eq. (5) which is affected
by KI, KII and 0 reaches a constant value of KIc, mixed mode brittle fracture takes
place.
The procedure for evaluating the initiation of fracture in the spiral weld pipes using
the maximum hoop stress (MHS) criterion is summarized here. Once a crack is found
in the pipe using the nondestructive testing methods and its size and shape are
determined, the stress intensity factors of the crack KI and KII should be calculated.
The stress intensity factors (SIF) can be found in handbooks but only for structures
with simple geometry and loading configurations. For more complicated crack
problems, numerical techniques like the finite element method are the best tools for
computing the stress intensity factors. The use of finite element method is advisable
for cracks that are detected in spiral weld pipes. This is because of helical shape of
welding line in the pipe, which introduces extra shear loads due to different material
properties in the welding material and the parent material. The other reason is that the
cracks in spiral weld pipes are rarely in either longitudinal or tangential directions.
The stress intensity factor for an angled part-through crack such as a semi-elliptical
crack is not normally available analytically. To achieve a more realistic fracture
assessment, it is also important to take into account the effects of factors like the
change in material properties as well as the residual stresses in the welding zone.
Then the stress intensity factors KI and KII should be replaced in Eq. (3), to calculate
the angle of initiation of brittle fracture o. For cracks having a curved crack front, the
stress intensity factors vary along the crack front. Thus the angle o should be
calculated for different points along the crack front. In the next step, for each of these
points the function hoop ( K I , K II , 0 ) is computed from Eq. (5). If at any of the points,
this function becomes more than the critical factor KIc of the related material, brittle
fracture is expected to initiate in the pipe.
KII / KIc
fracture
Safe
B
A
KI / KIc
Fig. 6: Failure design curve for mixed mode condition based on the MHS criterion.
For practical use of the MHS criterion in the engineering applications such as
integrity evaluation of cracked spiral weld pipes, an engineering design curve shown
in Fig. 6 can be used for predicting the onset of brittle fracture. After calculation of
stress intensity factors (KI and KII) and normalizing them by the fracture toughness of
weldment material (KIc), the corresponding points of (KI/KIc , KII/KIc) should be
determined in the design curve shown in Fig. 6. If the obtained point (like point A in
Fig. 6) lays inside the safe region (below the MHS design curve) the crack will not
propagate. Conversely, if the stress intensity factors correspond to the point B (which
locates outside the safe region), the fracture of cracked spiral weld will occur.
References
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