scholarly journals Design, Development and Confirmation of a High Toughness Gas Line Pipe for Alliance Pipeline at Camrose Pipe Company

Author(s):  
Alex J. Afaganis ◽  
James R. Mitchell ◽  
Lorne Carlson ◽  
Alan Gilroy-Scott

Through 1999, Camrose Pipe Company manufactured ∼152 km (∼45 000 tonnes) of 1067 × 11.4mm pipe for Alliance Pipeline Partnership Ltd. This section of Alliance’s pipeline was manufactured to a design whose pipe fracture toughness requirements was significantly beyond those historically manufactured in Canada and initiated a major leap in plate/pipe manufacturing toughness capability. The development of line pipe toughness in Canada culminating in this order will be profiled. Further, this high toughness design is at the far reaches of the traditional fracture arrest models. Besides the traditional Charpy energy measure, and to confirm Alliance’s confidence in their fracture arrest design, another two sets of fracture assessment tests were used on a trial and production basis: the API chevron notch drop weight tear test (CN DWTT) energy and the energy of a similar test using an Alliance notch modification. The results of these tests will be reviewed and compared.

Author(s):  
Bob Eiber ◽  
Lorne Carlson ◽  
Brian Leis

This paper reviews the fracture control plan for the Alliance Pipeline, which is planned for operation in 2000. This natural-gas pipeline is 2627 km (1858 miles) long, running from British Columbia, Canada to Illinois, USA. Interest in the fracture control for this pipeline results from its design, which is based on transporting a rich natural gas (up to 15% ethane, 3% propane) at a relatively high pressure 12,000 kPa (1740 psi). This break from traditional pressures and lean gases, which frequently are constrained by incremental expansion, is more efficient and more economical than previous natural gas pipelines. Use of higher pressures and rich gas requires adequate fracture control for the line pipe, fittings, and valves. This fracture control has been achieved for the Alliance Pipeline by specifying high-toughness steels, in terms of both fracture-initiation and fracture-propagation resistance for the line pipe, fittings and heavy wall components. While beneficial from an economics viewpoint, the need for higher toughnesses raised concern over the validity of the fracture control plan, which was based on existing and new technology. The concern focused on fracture arrest using high toughness steels. The concern was associated with characterizing fracture arrest resistance using Charpy V-notch impact toughness, the most commonly used method to measure fracture arrest resistance. Developments were undertaken to address problems associated with the use of higher-toughness steel and these were validated with full-scale pipe burst tests to demonstrate the viability of the fracture control plan. The solution involved extending existing methods to address much higher toughness steels, which provided a significantly improved correlation between fracture arrest predictions and experimental results. In the burst tests, data was collected to validate the Alliance design and also to extend the database of fracture arrest data to assist future pipelines. Data such as the pressure between the pipe and soil as the gas escapes from the pipe, the sound levels in the atmosphere, the movement and strains in the pipe ahead of the running fracture were instrumented in the test and the available results are presented.


Author(s):  
Ryuji Muaoka ◽  
Nobuyuki Ishikawa ◽  
Shigeru Endo ◽  
Joe Kondo

The West-Jefferson type full scale partial gas burst test was carried out in order to investigate appropriate evaluation method for resistance to brittle fracture propagation in high toughness linepipe materials that exhibits abnormal fracture appearance by the Drop Weight Tear Test (DWTT). Shear area fraction (SA%) of the DWTT that had been derived from the way regarding or disregarding the abnormal fracture appearance was compared with the shear area fraction obtained from the fracture surface by the full scale burst test. It was shown that SA% obtained by the burst tests corresponded well with that by the pressed notch DWTT for the cases of disregarding abnormal fracture appearance. On the other hand, SA% in the DWTT was lower than that in the burst test when the abnormal fracture appearance was treated in the same manner as the brittle fracture that occurs at the notch tip of the specimen. Therefore, it can be stated that the evaluation by regarding the abnormal fracture surface can be conservative and much relevant evaluation can be possible by disregarding the abnormal fracture appearance. SA% of the fracture surface in the Chevron notch DWTT showed slightly lower value than that in the burst test, regardless of whether abnormal fracture appearances was regarded or disregarded. This means the Chevron notch DWTT is also severe testing method, as well as the pressed notch DWTT with regarding the abnormal fracture surface.


Author(s):  
Kjell Olav Halsen ◽  
Espen Heier

Drop Weight Tear Testing is a common test method for determining a material’s ability to arrest a propagating crack. This testing method was developed by Battelle Memorial Institute, and is conducted in accordance with standards as API RP 5L3 ‘Recommended Practice for Conducting Drop Weight Tear testing on Line Pipe’ and EN 10274 ‘Metallic Materials - Drop Weight Tear Test’. One problem that has been encountered when performing Drop Weight Tear Testing of high toughness TMCP materials is that the pre-deformed material in the pressed notch is not sufficiently embrittled to ensure initiation of a brittle fracture. According to prevailing standards a brittle initiation is necessary for a valid test result. The material opposite the notched side (impact side) will deform quite considerably and is due to strain hardening expected to loose toughness prior to the actual fracture initiation takes place. Consequently high toughness material may give poor test results. In that respect, DNV initiated a Joint Industry Project called ‘Drop Weight Tear Testing of High Toughness Pipeline Material’, where the main objective was to obtain a better understanding on how the results from the DWTT should be interpreted for high toughness pipeline steels. During the project an extensive amount of Drop Weight Tear tests (DWTT) were performed on relevant modern pipeline steels. The resulting shear ratios were determined according to conventional fracture surface evaluation methods as well as newly developed methods as presented in the literature. The appearance of energy curves for both regular DWTT specimens and specimens with varying back gouge depths was also considered in the investigation and the consistency between the estimated shear ratios and the corresponding measured absorbed energies were thoroughly evaluated. This paper summarizes the results and recommendations obtained in the performed investigations.


2004 ◽  
Vol 368 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 18-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Byoungchul Hwang ◽  
Sunghak Lee ◽  
Young Min Kim ◽  
Nack J Kim ◽  
Jang Yong Yoo ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
S. Xu ◽  
R. Bouchard ◽  
W. R. Tyson

This paper reports results of tests on flow and ductile fracture of a very high toughness steel with Charpy V-notch absorbed energy (CVN energy) at room temperature of 471 J. The microstructure of the steel is bainite/ferrite and its strength is equivalent to X80 grade. The flow stress was determined using tensile tests at temperatures between 150°C and −147°C and strain rates of 0.00075, 0.02 and 1 s−1, and was fitted to a proposed constitutive equation. Charpy tests were carried out at an initial impact velocity of 5.1 ms−1 using drop-weight machines (maximum capacity of 842 J and 4029 J). The samples were not broken during the test, i.e. they passed through the anvils after significant bending deformation with only limited crack growth. Most of the absorbed energy was due to deformation. There was little effect of excess energy on absorbed energy up to 80% of machine capacity (i.e. the validity limit of ASTM E 23). As an alternative to the CVN energy, the crack tip opening angle (CTOA) measured using the drop-weight tear test (DWTT) has been proposed as a material parameter to characterize crack propagation resistance. Preliminary work on evaluating CTOA using the two-specimen CTOA test method is presented. The initiation energy is eliminated by using statically precracked test specimens. Account is taken of the geometry change of the specimens (e.g. thickening under the hammer) on the rotation factor and of the effect of strain rate on flow stress.


Author(s):  
Giannoula Chatzopoulou ◽  
Spyros A. Karamanos ◽  
George E. Varelis

Large-diameter thick-walled steel pipes during their installation in deep-water are subjected to a combination of loading in terms of external pressure, bending and axial tension, which may trigger structural instability due to excessive pipe ovalization with catastrophic effects. In the present study, the UOE pipe manufacturing process, commonly adopted for producing large-diameter pipes of significant thickness, is considered. The study examines the effect of UOE line pipe manufacturing process on the structural response and resistance of offshore pipes during the installation process using nonlinear finite element simulation tools.


Author(s):  
Badri K. Narayanan ◽  
Patrick Soltis ◽  
Marie Quintana

A new process (M2M™) to girth weld API Grade X-80 line pipe with a gas-less technology is presented. This process combines innovations in controlling arc length and energy input with microstructure control of the weld metal deposited to achieve high strength (over matching 550 MPa yield strength) and Charpy V-Notch toughness of over 60 Joules at −20°C. This paper will concentrate on the metallurgical aspects of the weld metal and the systematic steps taken to achieve high strength weld metal without sacrificing toughness. The development of an appropriate slag system to achieve the best possible microstructure for high toughness weld metal is discussed. The indirect effects of the slag system on the weld metal composition, which in turn affects the microstructure and physical properties, are detailed. In order to achieve sound weld metal without gas protection using a semi-automatic process, a basic slag system with minimal acidic components is used to improve the cleanliness of the weld metal without sacrificing weldability. In addition, a complex combination of micro-alloying elements is used to achieve the optimum precipitation sequence of nitrides that is critical for high toughness. The final part of this paper gives details about the robustness of this process to weld high strength pipe. The results show that this is a practical and unique solution for girth welding of X-80 pipe to achieve acceptable toughness and over a 15% overmatch in yield strength of X-80 pipe without sacrificing productivity.


JOM ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 985-994
Author(s):  
E. H. Brubaker ◽  
J. D. Dennison ◽  
R. J. Eiber ◽  
A. B. Wilder

Author(s):  
D. Rudland ◽  
D.-J. Shim ◽  
G. M. Wilkowski ◽  
S. Kawaguchi ◽  
N. Hagiwara ◽  
...  

The ductile fracture resistance of newer line pipe steels is of concern for high grade/strength steels and higher-pressure pipeline designs. Although there have been several attempts to make improved ductile fracture arrest models, the model that is still used most frequently is the Battelle Two-Curve Method (TCM). This analysis incorporates the gas-decompression behavior with the fracture toughness of the pipe material to predict the minimum Charpy energy required for crack arrest. For this analysis, the influence of the backfill is lumped into one empirically developed “soil” coefficient which is not specific to soil type, density or strength. No attempt has been made to quantify the effects of soil depth, type, total density or strength on the fracture speeds of propagating cracks in line pipe steels. In this paper, results from small-scale and large-scale burst tests with well-controlled backfill conditions are presented and analyzed to determine the effects of soil depth and cohesiveness on the fracture speeds. Combining this data with the past full-scale burst data used in generating the original backfill coefficient provides additional insight into the effects of the soil properties on the fracture speeds and the arrest of running ductile fractures in line pipe materials.


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