Risk analysis of in-service pressure piping containing defects

The reliability of pressure piping containing defects is important in engineering. The failure probability of pressure piping containing defects may be used as a guide to the most economic deployment of resources on maintenance, inspection and repair. This paper presents a probabilistic assessment methodology for in-service pressure piping containing defects, which is especially designed for programming. It is based on three assessment codes, BS 7910, R6 and SAPV-99, considering uncertainties in operating loadings, flaw sizes, material fracture toughness and flow stress. A general sampling computation method of stress intensity factor (SIF), in the form of the relationship between SIF and axial force and bending moment and torsion, is adopted. This relationship has been successfully used in developing software, Safety Assessment System of In-service Pressure Piping Containing Flaws (SAPP-2003), to assess planar and non-planar flaws. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the application of SAPP-2003 for calculating the failure probabilities of separate defects and for the assessed pressure piping.