Investigation of Pipe Strain Measurements in a Curved Wide Plate Specimen

Throughout the last two decades, curved wide plate (CWP) tests have proven to be highly valuable to evaluate the strain capacity of defected girth welds. Despite its widespread application, the CWP test is not yet standardized. In particular, the effects of specimen geometry and deformation measurement setup on the measurement of pipe (remote) strain have not yet been thoroughly documented. Recently, Laboratory Soete published its ‘UGent’ guidelines for CWP testing, in which advice is given on the entire experimental setup. This paper elaborates a finite element analysis of the effect of the CWP specimen’s geometry on the strain measurement. It is found that, following the UGent guidelines and under the assumptions of the study, the geometry has a limited influence for the entire range of investigated materials and pipe dimensions. This indicates that meeting the UGent guidelines for CWP testing yields representative pipe strain measurements.