Three‐dimensional, elastic–plastic finite element analyses for circumferential through‐wall cracked pipes are performed using actual tensile data of stainless steels, for two purposes. The first one is to validate the recently proposed enhanced reference stress (ERS) method to estimate the J‐integral and rack‐opening displacement (COD) for circumferential through‐wall cracked pipes. The second one is to compare the J and COD results from the ERS method with those based on the GE/EPRI method, together with the finite element results. It is found that the GE/EPRI method generally provides poor estimations of J and COD, and such poor estimation results from the Ramberg–Osgood (R–O) fit. Moreover, the GE/EPRI results can be very sensitive to how the stress–strain data are fitted using the R–O relation. The most appropriate fitting range for the R–O fit depends on the material, and thus no specific guideline can be given. On the contrary, the J and COD estimations based on the ERS method give more accurate and robust results than the GE/EPRI estimation. The present results, together with the experimental validation presented in the previous paper, provide sufficient confidence in using the proposed method in the leak‐before‐break analysis.
The present paper proposes a robust method for the Ramberg-Osgood (R-O) fit to accurately estimate elastic-plastic J from the engineering fracture mechanics analysis based on deformation plasticity. The proposal is based on engineering stress-strain data to determine the R-O parameters, instead of true stress-strain data. Moreover, for practical applications, the method is given not only for the case when full stress-strain data are available but also for the case when only yield and tensile strengths are available. The reliability of the proposed method for the R-O fit is validated against detailed three-dimensional FE analyses for through-wall cracked pipes under global bending using five different materials, three stainless steels and two ferritic steels. Taking the FE J results based on incremental plasticity using actual stress-strain data as the reference, the FE J results based on deformation plasticity using various R-O fits are compared with reference J values. Comparisons show that the proposed R-O fit provides more accurate J values for all cases, compared to existing methods for the R-O fit. Advantages of the proposed R-O fit in practical applications are discussed, together with its accuracy.
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