Ductile fracture analysis of carbon steel pipe with a circumferential through-wall crack

Abstract

It is necessary to make clear the pipe fracture conditions based on elastic-plastic fracture mechanics to assess the leak before break situation of carbon steel pipes for LWR plants. The aim of the present work is to discuss the effects of pipe size, initial crack length and fracture toughness on the estimated fracture load and mode of carbon steel pipes with a circumferential through-wall crack. As an analytical method, the R6-Rev.3 approach was applied to the pipe fracture analyses considering its simplicity in the application. The results indicate that the net-section collapse attainment becomes difficult with increasing diameter and decreasing thickness of carbon steel pipes. The degree of the net-section collapse attainment decreases with increasing crack length up to some critical size and then increases. The predicted fracture load is more sensitive to the material's J– R curve than to the elastic-plastic fracture toughness J IC . And a simple limit load analysis based on the yield stress is appropriate to evaluate the fracture load, as long as a proper margin was included.