Effects of Specimen Geometry on Fatigue-Crack Growth Rates in Pipeline Steels

The effects of specimen geometry on the fatigue crack growth rates (FCGR) in API X65 and X100 pipeline steels were explored by use of the middle tension and compact tension specimen geometries. It was found that the specimen type has little influence on the stage II linear fatigue crack growth region for these steels. Furthermore, the FCGR behavior in the longitudinal and transverse directions was found to be nearly identical for both steels. Also of interest was a comparison of the FCGR results to the BS 7910 design curves, which showed a discrepancy between the results and the standard only at low delta K levels. A finite element analysis of the compliance relationships used to predict the crack lengths during testing of both specimen types revealed that the expression for both the middle tension specimen and the compact tension specimen were found to be valid. Although the curved geometry of the middle tension specimen caused slightly different compliance results, these differences did not appear to affect the FCGR results.