Pipe Elbows Under Strong Cyclic Loading

2012 ◽  
Vol 135 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
George E. Varelis ◽  
Spyros A. Karamanos ◽  
Arnold M. Gresnigt

Motivated by the response of industrial piping under seismic loading conditions, the present study examines the behavior of steel process piping elbows, subjected to strong cyclic loading conditions. A set of experiments is conducted on elbow specimens subjected to constant amplitude in-plane cyclic bending, resulting into failure in the low-cycle-fatigue range. The experimental results are used to develop a low-cycle-fatigue curve within the strain-based fatigue design framework. The experimental work is supported by finite element analyses, which account for geometrical and material nonlinearities. Using advanced plasticity models to describe the behavior of elbow material, the analysis focuses on localized deformations at the critical positions where cracking occurs. Finally, the relevant provisions of design codes (ASME B31.3 and EN 13480) for elbow design are discussed and assessed, with respect to the experimental and numerical findings.

Author(s):  
George E. Varelis ◽  
Spyros A. Karamanos ◽  
Arnold M. Gresnigt

Motivated by the response of industrial piping under seismic loading conditions, the present study examines the behavior of steel process piping elbows, subjected to strong cyclic loading conditions. A set of experiments is conducted on elbow specimens subjected to constant-amplitude in-plane cyclic bending, resulting into failure in the low-cycle-fatigue range. The experimental results are used to develop a low-cycle-fatigue curve within the strain-based fatigue design framework. The experimental work is supported by finite element analyses, which account for geometrical and material nonlinearities. Using advanced plasticity models to describe the behavior of elbow material, the analysis focuses on localized deformations at the critical positions where cracking occurs. Finally, the relevant provisions of design codes (ASME B31.3 and EN 13480) for elbow design are discussed and assessed, with respect to the experimental and numerical findings.


Author(s):  
Masaki Shiratori ◽  
Yoji Ochi ◽  
Izumi Nakamura ◽  
Akihito Otani

A series of finite element analyses has been carried out in order to investigate the failure behaviors of degraded bent pipes with local thinning against seismic loading. The sensitivity of such parameters as the residual thickness, locations and width of the local thinning to the failure modes such as ovaling and local buckling and to the low cycle fatigue damage has been studied. It has been found that this approach is useful to make a reasonable experimental plan, which has to be carried out under the condition of limited cost and limited period.


2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kunio Hasegawa ◽  
Katsumasa Miyazaki ◽  
Izumi Nakamura

It is important to assess the failure strengths for pipes with wall thinning to maintain the integrity of the piping systems and to make codification of allowable wall thinning. Full-scale fracture experiments on cyclic loading under constant internal pressure were performed for 4in. diameter straight pipes and 8in. diameter elbow pipes at ambient temperature. The experiments were low cycle fatigue under displacement controlled conditions. It is shown that a dominant failure mode under cyclic loading for straight pipes and elbows is crack initiation∕growth accompanying swelling by ratchet or buckling with crack initiation. When the thinning depth is deep, the failure mode is burst and crack growth with ratchet swelling. In addition, failure strengths were compared with the design fatigue curve of the ASME Code Sec. III. It is shown that pipes with wall thinning less than 50% of wall thickness have sufficient margins against a seismic event of the safety shutdown earthquake.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1038 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Ivan Medved ◽  
Oleksandr Pirogov ◽  
Andrey Romin ◽  
Vitalii Slovinskyi ◽  
Galyna Venzhego

Metallurgy, mechanical engineering, energy, agriculture, food industry, energy, electronics, rocket and space technology – this is a far from complete list of areas of the national economy in which liquid cryogenic products (cryoproducts). The production volumes of such products and the scale of their use are constantly increasing. This is due to the fact that cryogenic temperatures (below 120 K) provide unique opportunities for the implementation of such physical phenomena and processes that do not manifest themselves under normal conditions, but are used very effectively in science and technology. The solution of fundamental scientific problems and applied problems of both promising and current importance is determined by the level of development of cryogenic technology and the degree of its practical application. The continuous expansion of the scale of production of liquid cryogenic products has led in recent years to a significant increase in the volume of production of systems for their storage and transportation. These systems, as a rule, are welded shell structures in execution, they are operated in difficult conditions of temperature and force effects. The share of their production in the total output of cryogenic engineering products is very significant, and the operating conditions are the most stressful in comparison with other types of cryogenic structures. For the manufacture of cryogenic shell structures, expensive non-ferrous alloys and special steels are used, the degree of consumption of which, taking into account the sufficient material consumption of such structures and the expanding scale of their production, is constantly increasing. Therefore, one of the most urgent for cryogenic mechanical engineering at present is the problem of reducing the material consumption of shell structures and increasing their reliability and durability. It is obvious that a solution to this problem for cryogenic engineering products can be achieved by improving the methods of their strength calculations based on taking into account the specific hardening effect of low temperature on structural alloys. The phenomenon of low-cycle fatigue of metals is associated with elastoplastic deformation of their macrovolumes. The kinetics of elastoplastic deformation processes under cyclic loading depends on the loading conditions and material properties, and the nature of these processes and their intensity have a decisive influence on the features of material destruction. If the accumulation of deformation is small, then the destruction, as a rule, is of a fatigue nature; quasi-static fracture (similar in appearance to fracture during static tests for short-term strength) occurs after the realization of the ultimate plasticity of the material. The task of assessing the bearing capacity and durability under cyclic loading conditions is extremely important. Under cyclic loading, a number of specific phenomena and factors that are difficult to take into account analytically arise, which are primarily associated with the development of fatigue damage, with the need to assess the cyclic and structural instability of materials [1]. Since such studies are very laborious and expensive, the problem of minimizing such experiments is currently urgent. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of using mathematical planning methods for experimental studies at cryogenic temperatures. Experiment planning is usually understood as the procedure for choosing the volume and conditions of testing necessary and sufficient to solve the problem with the required accuracy.


1974 ◽  
Vol 188 (1) ◽  
pp. 321-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. J. Evans ◽  
G. P. Tilly

The low-cycle fatigue characteristics of an 11 per cent chromium steel, two nickel alloys and two titanium alloys have been studied in the range 20° to 500°C. For repeated-tension stress tests on all the materials, there was a sharp break in the stress-endurance curve between 103 and 104 cycles. The high stress failures were attributed to cyclic creep contributing to the development of internal cavities. At lower stresses, failures occurred through the growth of fatigue cracks initiated at the material surface. The whole fatigue curve could be represented by an expression developed from linear damage assumptions. Data for different temperatures and types of stress concentration were correlated by expressing stress as a fraction of the static strength. Repeated-tensile strain cycling data were represented on a stress-endurance diagram and it was shown that they correlated with push-pull stress cycles at high stresses and repeated-tension at low stresses. In general, the compressive phase tended to accentuate cyclic creep so that ductile failures occurred at proportionally lower stresses. Changes in frequency from 1 to 100 cycle/min were shown to have no significant effect on low-cycle fatigue behaviour.


Author(s):  
Jean Alain Le Duff ◽  
Andre´ Lefranc¸ois ◽  
Jean Philippe Vernot

In February/March 2007, The NRC issued Regulatory Guide “RG1.207” and Argonne National Laboratory issued NUREG/CR-6909 that is now applicable in the US for evaluations of PWR environmental effects in fatigue analyses of new reactor components. In order to assess the conservativeness of the application of this NUREG report, Low Cycle Fatigue (LCF) tests were performed by AREVA NP on austenitic stainless steel specimens in a PWR environment. The selected material exhibits in air environment a fatigue behavior consistent with the ANL reference “air” mean curve, as published in NUREG/CR-6909. LCF tests in a PWR environment were performed at various strain amplitude levels (± 0.6% or ± 0.3%) for two loading conditions corresponding to a simple or to a complex strain rate history. The simple loading condition is a fully reverse triangle signal (for comparison purposes with tests performed by other laboratories with the same loading conditions) and the complex signal simulates the strain variation for an actual typical PWR thermal transient. In addition, two various surface finish conditions were tested: polished and ground. This paper presents the comparisons of penalty factors, as observed experimentally, with penalty factors evaluated using ANL formulations (considering the strain integral method for complex loading), and on the other, the comparison of the actual fatigue life of the specimen with the fatigue life predicted through the NUREG report application. For the two strain amplitudes of ± 0.6% and ± 0.3%, LCF tests results obtained on austenitic stainless steel specimens in PWR environment with triangle waveforms at constant low strain rates give “Fen” penalty factors close to those estimated using the ANL formulation (NUREG/6909). However, for the lower strain amplitude level and a triangle loading signal, the ANL formulation is pessimistic compared to the AREVA NP test results obtained for polished specimens. Finally, it was observed that constant amplitude LCF test results obtained on ground specimens under complex loading simulating an actual sequence of a cold and hot thermal shock exhibits lower combined environmental and surface finish effects when compared to the penalty factors estimated on the basis of the ANL formulations. It appears that the application of the NUREG/CR-6909 in conjunction with the Fen model proposed by ANL for austenitic stainless steel provides excessive margins, whereas the current ASME approach seems sufficient to cover significant environmental effects for representative loadings and surface finish conditions of reactor components.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu Jia ◽  
Yang Ou Xiang ◽  
Hu Yuan Pei ◽  
Song Wei

PurposeThe investigations could guide the structural design and fatigue life prediction of air-conditioning compressor valve plates.Design/methodology/approachThe High-Cycle Fatigue (HCF) and Very-High-Cycle Fatigue (VHCF) behaviors of stainless steel used for air-conditioning compressor valve plates were investigated. Monotonic and cyclic loading conditions were designed to explore the fatigue responses according to the load characteristics of the structure.FindingsThe crack initiation can be observed as the arc-shaped cracks at both sides of specimens and Y-shaped crack bifurcation in the specimens. Moreover, the middle section and the cracks at both ends are not connected to the surface of the specimen. The stress-life results of the materials under two directions (vertical and horizontal) were provided to examine the difference in fatigue strength.Originality/valueMonotonic and cyclic loading conditions were designed to explore the fatigue responses according to the load characteristics of the structure. Based on the experimental data, the results indicate that specimens under cyclic loading conditions could demonstrate better mechanical performance than static loadings.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document