Proceedings of ICASI - 2004

International Conference on Advances in Structural Integrity

July 14-17, 2004, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

ICASI/XX-XXX

Strain-based Fracture Mechanics Analysis of Pipelines

Jayadevan K. R.a, stby E.b and Thaulow C.a,*
a

Department of Engineering Design and materials, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
b
Sintef Material Technology, Department of Fracture Mechanics and Material Testing,
Trondheim, Norway.
*
E-mail: christian.thaulow@ntnu.no
ABSTRACT

High internal pressure combined with bending/tension, accompanied by large plastic strains, along with the potential
flaws in girth welds makes the structural integrity of pipelines a formidable challenge. The existing procedures for the
fracture assessment of pipelines are based on simplified analytical methods, and derived for a load-based approach.
Hence, application to surface cracked pipes under large deformation is doubtful. The aim of this paper is to explore the
applicability of a strain-based fracture mechanics approach for pipelines independent of the remote loading conditions.
The evolution of CTOD of a pipeline segment with an external/internal circumferential surface crack is examined under
tensile loading as well as bending. Detailed three-dimensional elastic-plastic finite element simulations are performed.
The effects of ovalisation of pipes under bending on the fracture response are also addressed. The results show a
significant effect of the out-of-plane stress due to ovalisation on the crack-driving force relations. However, the study
suggests that the tension results can be used as a reasonably conservative estimate for more realistic loading situations in
pipelines.
Keywords: Line-pipes, Surface cracks, Strain-based approach, Biaxial loading, Limit design, Offshore pipelines,
Fracture assessment, Structural integrity

1. INTRODUCTION
In several situations, pipes can be subjected to very large
plastic strains up to the order of 3%. The extreme loading
conditions (high internal pressure combined with
bending/tension) and the potential defects (such as, flaws
in girth welds, damage due to corrosion, etc.) further
make the fracture assessment of pipelines a formidable
challenge.
Todays design practice for offshore pipelines are
commonly dictated by the local buckling/collapse limit
state. Recent research pushed the allowable strain limits
on the compression side to quite large values, up to the
order of 3% [1]. On the other hand, the permissible
strain based on fracture on the tension side is still very
restricted. Current codes and standards (for example, BS
7910: 1999 [2]) for fractures assessment are generally
formulated for load-controlled situations. In these loadbased approaches, loading well above the yield is usually

restricted. However, there are several situations where

the pipeline is subjected to displacement controlled
loading well into the plastic regime. Hence, for the
fracture assessment in pipelines, a strain-based approach
[3] is advocated. However, these procedures [3] are still
based on the existing crack-driving force equations which
are limited to small plastic strains, and hence, application
in structures subjected to large plastic deformation is
doubtful [4].
Hence, an accurate and simple strainbased fracture assessment procedure for offshore
pipelines with the objective of possible further
enhancement in deformation capacity on the tension side
is highly desirable.
The J-integral (energy release rate) and crack-tip
opening displacement (CTOD) are the most viable
fracture parameters for characterizing initiation of crack
growth, stable crack growth and subsequent instability in
ductile materials [5].
This suggests that fracture

parameters like J and/or CTOD can be conveniently used

to assess the fracture behavior of line-pipe steels.
Several studies [6, 7] are reported in the literature
concerning fracture assessment of cracks in pipes. Most
of these studies focused attention on the nuclear industry,
where safety is the major concern, leading to
conservative estimates. Further, approximations such as
small-strain response, simple loading conditions and
crack geometries are inherent in these analytical
procedures. Moreover, the biaxial loading effects are
accounted for only by an equivalent tensile load. Hence,
although the analytical methods look attractive, the
accuracy of these procedures in the large plastic strain
regime and under complex loading conditions is doubtful
[4].
The three-dimensional (3-D) finite element
simulations are apparently necessary to provide accurate
results for the fracture response of surface cracked pipes.
Shimanuki and Inoue [8] conducted an assessment of
brittle fracture in girth-weld joints of pipelines subjected
to combined loading conditions. They concluded that for
the X80 line-pipe steel, the fracture resistance is secured
only within the elastic region. Considering the
importance of the scenario, a detailed numerical and
experimental program has been initiated in the Fracture
Control project at SINTEF, Norway [9]. In tune with the
existing guidelines [1], a strain-based design procedure
from a fracture mechanics view point is envisaged in this
project. The ultimate goal of the project is to establish
safety levels based on reliability approaches for the limitstate design of offshore pipelines.
Recently, the authors [4, 10] carried out a detailed
investigation to derive the crack-driving force equations
for cracked pipes under tensile and bend loading. We
observed that for both tension and bending, a simple
linear CTOD-strain relationship can be approximated up
to moderately large plastic strain levels. The slope of
this curve depends strongly on the crack depth, crack
length, internal pressure and the material properties.
This study aims at exploring the applicability of the
strain-based fracture mechanics approach for pipelines
independent of the remote loading conditions. The
evolution of CTOD of a line-pipe segment with an
external/internal circumferential part-through surface
crack is investigated under tensile loading as well as
bending. Three-dimensional elastic-plastic finite element
simulations are performed using the ABAQUS finite
element code [11]. The effects of ovalisation on crackdriving force relations are also addressed. The results
suggest that the tensile loading of external cracked pipes
can be used to establish strain-based fracture assessment
procedures for pipelines.

2. NUMERICAL DETAILS
The details of the pipe geometry considered in this work
are shown in Fig. 1.
An external/internal surface
cracked straight pipe with outer diameter, D=400 mm
and wall thickness, t=20 mm, is chosen. The crack is
assumed to be of uniform depth, a, along the
circumferential crack length, 2c, with an end-radius equal
to the crack depth (Fig. 1(b)). The details of the crack
are similar for external (Fig. 1(b)) and internal (Fig. 1(c))
configurations. A crack length ratio, c/R=0.1 (R being
D/2) is chosen for the simulations. Two different crack
depth to thickness ratios of a/t=0.1 and 0.2 are
considered. Some analyses with an uncracked pipe are
also conducted for comparison. The total length, 2L of
the pipe segment is taken to be six times the outer
diameter.
The details of the mesh employed in this study have
been reported by Jayadevan et al. [4]. Considering the
symmetry, only one-quarter of the pipe is modeled. A
blunt crack front is explicitly modeled with a radius of 25
microns. Symmetry boundary conditions (see Fig. 1) are
prescribed on the top and bottom edges of the pipe model
as well as at nodes on the mid-section of the pipe,
excluding crack face nodes.
The different loading situations investigated in this
study are displayed in Figs. 2(a)-(d). In the tension case
(Figs. 2(a) and (b)), the pipe is loaded by specifying the
axial displacement for the end-nodes. For the bending
(Figs. 2(c) and (d)), a set of multi-point constraint (MPC)
relations is used to prescribe rotation at the uncracked
end of the pipe. These MPCs constrain the deformation
of the end-plane to remain in its plane.
y

D
2L
(a)
y

2c
s

r=a

a
t

(c)
(b)

Figure 1. (a) Geometry of the pipe with an external

circumferential surface flaw. (b) Details of the surface
crack. (c) An internal surface crack.

M
(a)

(b)

M
F

(c)

Fpr

(d)

Figure 2. The different loading situations analyzed in this

study. (a) Pure tensile loading, (b) pure bending and (c)
biaxial loading under tension and (c) bending.

The effect of biaxial loading under tension and

bending (Figs. 2(b) and (d)) is also investigated. For both
the biaxial loading cases, pressure load was applied in
one step on the inner surface of the pipe as a distributed
load, and then the axial/rotational displacement for
tension/bending was prescribed gradually.
For the
bending with internal pressure, an end-load (Fpr in Fig.
2(d)) was also applied in one step as a concentrated force
at the end along with the pressure load. This end-load
corresponds to that caused by pressure assuming closedends for the pipe. The above loading sequences simulate
realistic situations encountered in pipelines. A typical
value of internal pressure (P=20 MPa) that causes a hoop
stress (h) equal to 50% of the yield stress (o) is taken in
the simulations.

the crack front [4]. Recently, the authors have

demonstrated that the axial strain on the top surface and
at a length of 1D from the mid-length of the pipe can be
used for deriving strain-based fracture mechanics
relations up to moderately deep cracks [4, 10]. These
values of the 1D global strain and mid-section CTOD are
used to present the results.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1. Pure tensile/bend loading
Figures 3(a) and (b) show the evolutions of CTOD with
strain for a surface cracked pipe (c/R=0.1, D/t=20 and
n=0.05) with a/t=0.1 and 0.2, respectively. In both these
figures, the results for internal and external crack
configurations under pure tension (Fig. 2(a)) and bending
(Fig. 2(b)) are included.

A detailed mesh sensitivity study was carried

out [4, 10] to arrive at the appropriate finite element
model. This study confirmed that the model employed
can accurately predict the fracture parameters within
reasonable limits. Also, it was found that the chosen
length of the pipe model (L = 3D, see Fig. 1) is long
enough to cause any end-effects on the computed fracture
parameters to be negligible [4, 10].
The crack-tip opening displacement (CTOD) values
are extracted from the finite element displacements of the
nodes which are at the 45o intercept from the crack front.
The maximum CTOD is expected at the mid-section of

0.6

0.4
a / t = 0.1
c / R = 0.1
D / t = 20
n=0.05

0.2

The material behaviour is assumed to follow the

Mises isotropic power-law hardening behaviour. The
following representative values of line-pipe steels are
chosen in the simulations. Initial yield stress, o = 400
MPa, strain hardening exponent, n = 0.05, Young's
modulus, E = 200 GPa and Poisson's ratio, = 0.3.

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

0.05

Strain, mm / mm

(a)
4

CTOD, mm

The simulations were carried out using ABAQUS

[11]. The effects of large strain and displacement were
considered in the analyses. Also, the chosen element
type (ABAQUS type C3D20R, [11]) in the analyses
accounts for the volumetric locking due to plastic
incompressibility.

EC_TEN
EC_BEN
IC_TEN
IC_BEN

0.8

CTOD, mm

EC_TEN
EC_BEN
IC_TEN
IC_BEN

a / t = 0.2
c / R = 0.1
D / t = 20
n=0.05

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

0.05

Strain, mm / mm

(b)
Figure 3. The evolutions of CTOD with strain for
external (EC) and internal (IC) surface cracked pipes
(c/R=0.1, D/t=20 and n=0.05) under tension (TEN) and
bending (BEN). (a) a/t=0.1 and (b) a/t=0.2.

With further increase in plastic deformation, CTOD

increases rapidly with strain (Region 3) for tensile
loading of both external and internal cracked pipes. This
is more pronounced for a/t=0.2 than a/t=0.1. Thus, for
a/t=0.1, the CTOD-strain curve remains linear up to
=5%, whereas the curve for a/t=0.2 shows a sudden
increase in CTOD at about =4%. This may be due to the
more enhanced localized deformation and changes in the
kinematics near the crack region [4] with increasing
crack depth and strain level. It may further be noted from
Figs. 3(a) and (b) that the CTOD-strain curve for the
internal cracked pipe under tension differs marginally
from the corresponding external crack.
In contrast, under bending, the CTOD values for both
(a/t=0.1 and 0.2) external surface cracked pipes decrease
with increase in deformation (see Fig. 3), particularly for
>1%. For the shallow (a/t=0.1) internal crack under
bending (Fig. 3(a)), the CTOD at large strains is higher
than the corresponding tension case. Similar results for
a/t=0.2 show that the CTOD for the internal crack under
bending is slightly less than the tension case. Also, this
curve remains linear up to strains less 5%. The deviation
of trends between tension and bending or internal and
external cracks is marginal up to strain level of 1%.
These observations may be attributed to the ovalisation of
the pipe under bending, which is displayed in Fig. 4.
Figure 4 shows the change in vertical diameter (along
y-axis, see Fig. 1) of the pipe as a function of the global
strain.
The current diameter extracted from the midlength of the pipe is normalized with the original value.
The results corresponding to the two cracked pipes and
also for the uncracked pipe are included in Fig. 4.
These results illustrate that for strains, >1%, the crosssection of the pipe ovalises strongly with increase in
deformation. Thus, Fig. 4 shows that the vertical
diameter decreases by about 25% when the strain level
exceeds 5%. For <1%, the ovalisation of the cross
section is marginal. This corroborate with the fact that
the CTOD-strain relations under bending and tension are

approximately similar for small strain levels (<1%).

Finally, it is important to note from Fig. 4 that the
ovalisation is only marginally affected by shallow surface
cracks.
The observed deviation of trends in the CTOD-strain
relationships for surface cracked pipes under bending
from the tension can be explained based on the effect of
out-of-plane stress due to ovalisation on the effective
yield stress. This is schematically illustrated in Fig. 5.
The ovalisation of the pipe causes bending stresses in the
hoop direction as shown in Fig. 5(a). These bending
stresses are tensile on the tope side of the thickness,
whereas the stresses are compressive on the bottom.
This indicates that the shear bands of external/internal
cracked pipe under bending will be subjected to
additional out-of-plane tensile/compressive stresses.
Also, the magnitude of the out-of-plane stress near the
crack-tip varies with the crack depth. The effect of outof-plane loading on the effective yield stress is
schematically shown in Fig. 5(b). This figure illustrates
that the out-of-plane tensile stress increases the effecting
yield stress whereas the compressive stress decreases the
yield stress.
The above observations from the schematic
demonstrate that the ovalisation can cause an apparent
material hardening or softening effects on the local cracktip plasticity. This in turn is reflected in the CTOD-strain
relationships of cracked pipes under bending. Thus, for
the external shallow cracked pipe under bending, the
localised material hardening effects give rise to lower
values of CTOD compared to the tension case. On the
other hand, for the internal cracked pipe (a/t=0.1), the
material softening increases the CTOD for bending above

1.2

Uncracked
a / t = 0.1
a / t = 0.2
1

D/Do

The results shown in Fig. 3 in general show that a

linear CTOD-strain relationship can be approximated
over a large window of deformations. For small strain
levels ( < o, the yield strain), ie., when the pipe is
globally elastic, the CTOD-strain relationship is
quadratic (Region 1). As the plasticity spreads over the
pipe, the CTOD-strain variation becomes approximately
linear, and this trend remains up to moderately large
strain levels ( < 3%) (Region 2). This simple linear
relationship between CTOD and strain suggests that a
strain-based approach would be more appropriate for
surface cracked pipes than a load-based procedure in
which the fracture response is too sensitive to load at
large plastic strain levels.

0.8

0.6

c / R = 0.1
n = 0.05
D / t = 20
Bending
At mid-section

0.02

0.04

Do

0.06

Strain, mm / mm

Figure 4. Ovalisation of the surface cracked pipes under

pure bending, extracted from the mid-length. The result
for the uncracked pipe is also included.

may counter the ovalisation of the pipe under bending.

This is illustrated in Fig. 6 showing the change in vertical
diameter at the mid-length of the uncracked pipe under
pure bending as well as bending with internal pressure
(h=0.5o). As seen from this figure, the ovalisation of
the pipe becomes negligible when additional internal
pressure is applied along with bend loading. This
indicates that with internal pressure, the ovalisation
effects on the CTOD-strain relationship will also be
marginal. This effect of biaxial loading on the crackdriving force relations are presented in Fig. 7.

(a)

y
z

(b)
Figure 5. Schematics showing (a) the out-of-plane stresses
due to ovalisation and (b) its effect on yield stress.
Ligament
plasticity
will
be
under
additional
tensile/compressive out-of-plane stress for external/internal
cracks.

the tensile loading at large strain levels.

As the crack depth increases, the near-tip deformation
increases strongly at large strain levels. Further, the
magnitude of out-of-plane stress near the tip region also
varies with the crack depth. The competing effects of
enhanced ligament deformation and ovalisation on
CTOD at large strains is reflected in a/t=0.2 (Fig. 3(b)).
Thus, under bending, the CTOD-strain curve for the
internal crack with a/t=0.2 remains approximately linear
up to very high strains (<5%). Further, this curve falls
below the corresponding curve for the tension case.
Thus the results demonstrate that shallow internal
surface cracks are more critical under pure bending
compared to tension. This may be important in pipelaying operations like reeling. However, the CTOD
levels observed for these cracks are small, and may
probably be of less interest in the design. Further, in
reality, some stable crack growth is observed in ductile
materials before any catastrophic fracture. As the crack
depth increases (Fig. 3(b)), the results show that CTODstrain relationships derived for external surface cracked
pipes under tension gives reasonably conservative
estimates for the bending, irrespective of the crack
position.

3.2. Biaxial loading

In service, the pipes are subjected to internal pressure
along with bending or axial tension. It is expected that
the internal pressure gives some stiffening effect which

Shown in Fig. 7 are the evolutions of CTOD with

strain for a shallow cracked pipe (a/t=0.1) under tension
and bending along with internal pressure. The results
corresponding to internal and external cracks are
included.
These results illustrates that external cracks
under tension with internal pressure are the most critical
case for the in-service loading situations. For strain
levels >1%, a noticeable decrease in CTOD is observed
even for the internal crack under tension from the
corresponding external case. This may be due to the
compressive radial stress on the ligament side of the
external cracked pipe.
This radial stress may lead to
enhanced ligament deformation, and hence higher
CTOD, due to the localised softening effect on the
effective yield stress (see Fig. 5(b).
Further, Fig. 7
shows that the bending with pressure load leads to lower
levels of CTOD compared to the tension, irrespective of
the crack position. This may be due to the linear bending
strain distribution around the circumference of the pipe.

1.2

h = 0
h = 0.5 y
1

D/Do

0.8

0.6

n = 0.05
D / t = 20
Uncracked pipe
Bending

0.02

0.04

Do

0.06

Strain, mm / mm

Figure 6. Effect of biaxial loading on ovalisation of the

uncracked pipe under bending.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CTOD, mm

EC_TEN
EC_BEN
IC_TEN
IC_BEN

Authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the

Joint Industry Project Fracture Control Offshore
Pipelines. Also the second author would like to thank
the Norwegian Research Council for the financial
assistance towards his research program.

REFERENCES
a / t = 0.1
c / R = 0.1
D / t = 20
n=0.05
h = 0.5 y

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

1.

0.05

Strain, mm / mm
Figure 7. The evolutions of CTOD with strain for external
(EC) and internal (IC) surface cracked pipe (a/t=0.1,
c/R=0.1, D/t=20 and n=0.05) under tension (TEN) and
bending (BEN) along with internal pressure (h=0.5o).

4. CONCLUSION
The crack-driving force relations for the strain-based
fracture mechanics assessment of surface cracked pipes
have been examined. In particular, the criticality of the
position of the crack and type of remote loading has been
addressed. The following are the main conclusions from
this study.

Without pressure load, higher CTOD values are

observed for shallow (a/t<0.1) internal surface
cracked pipes under bending compared to the
corresponding external case or external/internal
cracks under tension, particularly for >1%.
However, as the crack depth increases (a/t>0.2),
tensile loading of external/internal crack becomes the
most critical.

Under biaxial loading, CTOD-strain relationships for

external surface cracked pipes under tension give
reasonably conservatives estimates for bending. The
CTOD values for the internal crack under
tension/bending with additional hoop stress are much
lower than the corresponding external crack.

The ovalisation of the pipe is marginally affected by

shallow surface cracks (a/t<0.2). The biaxial loading
significantly resists the ovalisation of the pipe.

More importantly, the results demonstrate that an

external surface cracked pipe under tension can be
used to establish the strain-based fracture mechanics
procedures for pipelines.

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