The Treatment of Residual Stress in Fracture Assessment of Pressure Vessels

1994 ◽  
Vol 116 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Green ◽  
J. Knowles

The treatment of weld residual stress in the fracture assessment of cylindrical pressure vessels is considered through partitioning the stress into membrane, bending, and self-balancing through-wall components. The influence of each on fracture behavior is discussed. Stress intensity factor solutions appropriate to each type of stress are presented. Short-range, medium-range, and long-range stress categories are identified according to simple rules relating the effect of increasing crack length to stress intensity factor and ligament net stress. Proposals are made on how the stress intensity factor from these stress types may be incorporated into a Kr, Lr-based fracture assessment.

Author(s):  
Do-Jun Shim ◽  
Matthew Kerr ◽  
Steven Xu

Recent studies have shown that the crack growth of PWSCC is mainly driven by the weld residual stress (WRS) within the dissimilar metal weld. The existing stress intensity factor (K) solutions for surface cracks in pipe typically require a 4th order polynomial stress distribution through the pipe wall thickness. However, it is not always possible to accurately represent the through thickness WRS with a 4th order polynomial fit and it is necessary to investigate the effect of the WRS fitting on the calculated stress intensity factors. In this paper, two different methods were used to calculate the stress intensity factor for a semi-elliptical circumferential surface crack in a pipe under a given set of simulated WRS. The first method is the Universal Weight Function Method (UWFM) where the through thickness WRS distribution can be represented as a piece-wise cubic fit. In the second method, the through thickness WRS profiles are represented as a 4th order polynomial curve fit (both using the entire wall thickness data and only using data up to the crack-tip). In addition, three-dimensional finite element (FE) analyses (using the simulated weld residual stress) were conducted to serve as a reference solution. The results of this study demonstrate the potential sensitivity of stress intensity factors to 4th order polynomial fitting artifacts. The piece-wise WRS representations used in the UWFM was not sensitive to these fitting artifacts and the UWFM solutions were in good agreement with the FE results.


Author(s):  
P. John Bouchard ◽  
Jino Mathew

The effect of residual stress on potential crack growth and fracture in welded structures is usually assessed through its contribution to the stress intensity factor (SIF) for the crack size and shape of interest. The idea of defining bounding residual SIF profiles for surface breaking circumferential cracks in pipe butt welds was presented at ASME PVP2013. The limiting profiles were based on through-thickness residual stress measurements for eight pipe girth welds. This paper presents new axial residual stress measurements made using the contour method for an Esshete 1250 stainless steel pipe girth weld. A wide variation in the through-wall distribution of axial residual stress around the circumference of the pipe is observed which has a significant effect on calculated values of SIF for postulated surface breaking circumferential cracks. Nonetheless, SIFs based on all of the new measurements (a total of 14 profiles) are comfortably bounded by the simple SIF prescriptions previously published.


2014 ◽  
Vol 137 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Do-Jun Shim ◽  
Steven Xu ◽  
Matthew Kerr

Recent studies have shown that the crack growth of primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC) is mainly driven by the weld residual stress (WRS) within the dissimilar metal weld. The existing stress intensity factor (K) solutions for surface cracks in pipe typically require a fourth order polynomial stress distribution through the pipe wall thickness. However, it is not always possible to accurately represent the through thickness WRS with a fourth order polynomial fit and it is necessary to investigate the effect of the WRS fitting on the calculated Ks. In this paper, two different methods were used to calculate the K for a semi-elliptical circumferential surface crack in a pipe under a given set of simulated WRS. The first method is the universal weight function method (UWFM) where the through thickness WRS distribution is represented as a piece-wise monotonic cubic fit. In the second method, the through thickness WRS profiles are represented as a fourth order polynomial curve fit (both using the entire wall thickness data and only using data up to the crack-tip). In addition, three-dimensional finite element (FE) analyses (using the simulated weld residual stress) were conducted to provide a reference solution. The results of this study demonstrate the potential sensitivity of Ks to fourth order polynomial fitting artifacts. The piece-wise WRS representations used in the UWFM were not sensitive to these fitting artifacts and the UWFM solutions were in good agreement with the FE results. In addition, in certain cases, it was demonstrated that more accurate crack growth calculations of PWSCC are made when the UWFM is used.


Author(s):  
Kiminobu Hojo ◽  
Naoki Ogawa ◽  
Yoichi Iwamoto ◽  
Kazutoshi Ohoto ◽  
Seiji Asada ◽  
...  

A reactor pressure vessel (RPV) head of PWR has penetration holes for the CRDM nozzles, which are connected with the vessel head by J-shaped welds. It is well-known that there is high residual stress field in vicinity of the J-shaped weld and this has potentiality of PWSCC degradation. For assuring stress integrity of welding part of the penetration nozzle of the RPV, it is necessary to evaluate precise residual stress and stress intensity factor based on the stress field. To calculate stress intensity factor K, the most acceptable procedure is numerical analysis, but the penetration nozzle is very complex structure and such a direct procedure takes a lot of time. This paper describes applicability of simplified K calculation method from handbooks by comparing with K values from finite element analysis, especially mentioning crack modeling. According to the verified K values in this paper, fatigue crack extension analysis and brittle fracture evaluation by operation load were performed for initial crack due to PWSCC and finally structural integrity of the penetration nozzle of RPV head was confirmed.


Author(s):  
F. W. Brust ◽  
R. H. Dodds ◽  
J. Hobbs ◽  
B. Stoltz ◽  
D. Wells

Abstract NASA has hundreds of non-code layered pressure vessel (LPV) tanks that hold various gases at pressure. Many of the NASA tanks were fabricated in the 1950s and 1960s and are still in use. An agency wide effort is in progress to assess the fitness for continued service of these vessels. Layered tanks typically consist of an inner liner/shell (often about 12.5 mm thick) with different layers of thinner shells surrounding the inner liner each with thickness of about 6.25-mm. The layers serve as crack arrestors for crack growth through the thickness. The number of thinner layers required depends on the thickness required for the complete vessel with most tanks having between 4 and 20 layers. Cylindrical layers are welded longitudinally with staggering so that the weld heat affected zones do not overlap. The built-up shells are then circumferentially welded together or welded to a header to complete the tank construction. This paper presents some initial results which consider weld residual stress and fracture assessment of some layered pressure vessels and is a small part of the much larger fitness for service evaluation of these tanks. This effort considers the effect of weld residual stresses on fracture for an inner layer longitudinal weld. All fabrication steps are modeled, and the high-level proof testing of the vessels has an important effect on the final WRS state. Finally, cracks are introduced, and service loading applied to determine the effects of WRS on fracture.


2019 ◽  
Vol 795 ◽  
pp. 451-457
Author(s):  
Bao Yin Zhu ◽  
Xian Xi Xia ◽  
He Zheng ◽  
Guo Dong Zhang

An typical mode of a structural integrity failure in dissimilar steel welded joints. This paper aims at studying crack tip stress of a steam generator dissimilar welded joint under residual stress field with the method of interaction integral and XFEM. Firstly, the corresponding weak form is obtained where the initial stress field is involved, which is the key step for the XFEM. Then, the interaction integral is applying to calculate the stress intensity factor. In addition, two simple benchmark problems are simulated in order to verify the precision of this numerical method. Finally, this numerical method is applying to calculate the crack tip SIF of the addressed problem. This study finds that the stress intensity factor increases firstly then decreases with the deepening of the crack. The main preponderance of this method concerns avoiding mesh update by take advantage of XFEM when simulating crack propagation, which could avoid double counting. In addition, our obtained results will contribute to the safe assessment of the nuclear power plant steam generator.


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