Welding Residual Stresses and Effects on Fracture in Pressure Vessel and Piping Components: A Millennium Review and Beyond

Abstract

In this paper, the recent advances in weld residual stress modeling procedures are first reviewed within the context of pressure vessel and piping applications. A typical pipe girth weld was then used as an example to highlight some of the critical issues in weld residual stress prediction, measurement, and residual stress effects on various aspects of fracture behaviors from stress intensity factor solutions for a growing crack to crack-opening displacement calculations for leak-before-break assessment. Finally, the future needs in improved fracture mechanics procedures by incorporating the rapidly expanding knowledge on weld residual stresses are summarized with respect to pressure vessel and piping applications. [S0094-9930(00)02103-X]

Crack Growth Behavior in a Residual Stress Field for Vessel Type Structures

“…As discussed for many similar applications [3,11], the procedure for weld residual stress analysis is typically divided into two parts: transient heat transfer and transient thermomechanical analyses. At first, a transient heat transfer analysis solves for the temperature history associated with the heat flow during welding process.…”

“…In the following sections, the full-field residual stress distribution was considered by using some of the advanced finite element analysis procedures as discussed in earlier publications [3][4][6][7].…”

“…2, using an element activation/deactivation scheme. The subsequent transient thermo-mechanical analysis was carried out using a thermoplasticity analysis procedure along with a weld material constitutive model [3].…”

“…For instance, welding-induced residual stresses are often assumed to be tensile, of yield magnitude (or a specified percentage, if post-weld heat treatment applies), and uniform through the thickness. However, over the recent years, there has been a major progress in a better understanding of weld residual stresses, in part, due to the availability of advanced weld residual stress modeling tools [3][4]. It has been demonstrated that the current fitness-for-service procedures can significantly over-estimate the residual stress effects in most cases [3][4][5] and underestimate their effects in others [3][4][5].…”

“…Detailed residual stress analyses were performed using some of the advanced modeling procedures [3][4][5][6] to establish representative weld residual stress distribution. Stress intensity factors are then performed using a finite element alternating method (FEAM), as discussed in [7][8][9], by directly considering the weld residual stress distributions and quasi-static crack growth.…”