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The aim of the paper is to present a fatigue crack growth analysis thru a fractography study of different crack paths obtained in different operating conditions of the pressure vessel P355NL1 steel. All experiments were performed on CTS (Compact Tension Shear) specimens under the mixed mode (I+II) loading conditions. These stress states aim to reflect simple biaxiality stress states in a pressurized cylinder. In the experiments, different operating conditions were considered. Two different kinetic fatigue fracture diagrams were proposed for mixed mode fatigue crack growth rate estimation. The obtained results suggested a fact that energy approach describes synonymously the kinetics of fatigue crack growth under mixed mode loading conditions with respect to the mean stress effect – R-ratio. Finally, the fractography analysis sugessted that the fatigue fracture surface topography changes with the mixity level.

Pressure vessels and piping are commonly subjected to plastic deformation during manufacturing or installation. This pre-deformation history, usually called pre-strain, may have a significant influence on the resistance against fatigue crack growth of the material. Several studies have been performed to investigate the pre-strain effects on the pure mode I fatigue crack propagation, but less on mixed-mode (I+II) fatigue crack propagation conditions. The present study aims at investigating the effect of tensile plastic pre-strain on fatigue crack growth behavior (da/dN vs. ΔK) of the P355NL1 pressure vessel steel. For that purpose, fatigue crack propagation tests were conducted on specimens with two distinct degrees of pre-strain: 0% and 6%, under mixed mode (I+II) conditions using CTS specimens. Moreover, for comparison purposes, CT specimens were tested under pure mode I conditions for pre-strains of 0% and 3%. Contrary to the majority of previous studies, that applied plastic deformation directly on the machined specimen, in this work the pre-straining operation was carried out prior to the machining of the specimens with the objective to minimize residual stress effects and distortions. Results revealed that, for the P355NL1 steel, the tensile pre-strain increased fatigue crack initiation angle and reduced fatigue crack growth rates in the Paris region for mixed mode conditions. The pre-straining procedure had a clear impact on the Paris law constants, increasing the coefficient and decreasing the exponent. In the low ΔK region, results indicate that pre-strain causes a decrease in ΔKth.

One of the major concerns in offshore structures are the welded connections where fatigue failures are highly relevant. In many cases of offshore welded connections, the fatigue cracks initiated may grow from the weld to the base material, but also from the root of the weld. In this study, the evaluation of design S-N curves for a double-side welded connection made of S355J2 steel used in offshore applications is proposed. The characteristic fatigue curve of the double-side welded connection is obtained using statistical analyses based either in the ASTM E739 standard as well as the probabilistic fatigue model proposed by Castillo & Fernández-Canteli. This study concludes with a comparison between the experimental fatigue curves obtained and the design S-N curves proposed in design codes for offshore structures. Existing code recommendations are very conservative when comparing the design S-N curves with the proposed new characteristic S-N curves. For the joint under investigation the hot spot and nominal stress approaches yield very similar S-N results.

Miner’s rule for fatigue damage accumulation does not address conveniently the sequential effects of the fatigue loading due to underloads or overloads though such effects need to be taken into account for specific applications using a convenient model. Non-conservative (unsafe) or over-conservative (non-economic) fatigue predictions may result from such a linear damage analysis. To overcome these limitations, non-linear damage approaches are being proposed in the literature, as for instance, the double linear damage rule (DLDR). Further, advanced probabilistic models, as an alternative to deterministic ones, are being currently applied to fatigue damage assessment under variable (random) amplitude loading, though without including, up to present, sequential effects on the damage accumulation. In this paper, the synergetic effect of applying a non-linear fatigue damage model based on the DLDR in conjunction with a probabilistic approach based on the p-S-N field is pursued allowing the above mentioned sequential effects to be incorporated into a probabilistic damage prediction. The proposed approach was tested with existing fatigue block loading data available for the P355NL1 pressure vessel steel.

Ultra or extreme low-cycle fatigue of steels has been deserving increasing interest by the researchers since it corresponds to a fatigue domain not fully understood nor explored. It has been recognized that fatigue damage under extreme loading conditions is representative of several practical applications (e.g. seismic actions, accidental loads) and pipelines are a type of components that could undergo such extreme loading conditions. In addition, concerning the pipelines, reeling could also contribute to significant plastic cycles. ULCF damage corresponds to a transition damage behavior between the LCF and monotonic ductile damage. Therefore studies on ULCF usually needs to cover those bounding damage processes. ULCF testing exploring large-scale specimens is rare. The aim of this paper is to investigate the ultra-low-cycle fatigue of large-scale straight pipes subjected to cyclic pure bending tests which were performed under the framework of the ULCF European/RFCS project. In detail, two steel grades used on pipelines manufacturing were investigated, namely the X60 and X65 piping steels, respectively with the following nominal diameters of 16” (w.t. 9.5 mm) and 8 5/8” (w.t. 5.59 mm). A specifically developed testing setup was used to perform the cyclic bending of the straight pipes, combined with internal pressure, until the pipes collapse. The failure was preceded by local plastic instability (buckling), motivating the concentration of cyclic plastic deformation leading to macroscopic crack initiation and propagation. In addition to the full-scale tests, the plain material was investigated under monotonic and ULCF conditions using both smooth and notched specimens. In order to assess the stress/strain fields in the straight pipes, finite element models of the straight pipes were developed and simulations were performed under the experimental displacement histories. Nonlinear plasticity models with kinematic hardening, inputted on finite element simulations, were calibrated by means of small-scale data. Moreover, the test data of small-scale tests was used on the identification of damage models constants (e.g. Coffin-Manson), which in turn were applied to simulate the failure cycles of the tested straight pipes. The ASME B&PVC VIII Div.2 procedures were also used to compute the failure cycles for the straight pipes to allow an assessment of these existing procedures.