Ductile Failure Analysis of API X65 Pipes With Notch-Type Defects Using A Local Fracture Criterion

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International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping ] (]]]]) ]]]]]]

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Ductile failure analysis of API X65 pipes with notch-type defects

using a local fracture criterion
Chang-Kyun Oha, Yun-Jae Kima,, Jong-Hyun Baekb, Young-Pyo Kimb, Woo-Sik Kimb
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea University, 5 Ka, Anam-dong, Sungbuk-Ku, Seoul 136 701, Republic of Korea
b
Korea Gas Corporation Research and Development Center, 638-1, Il-dong Ansan Kyonggi-do 425 150, Republic of Korea
Received 3 January 2006; received in revised form 5 March 2007; accepted 5 March 2007
Abstract
A local failure criterion for API X65 steel is applied to predict ductile failure of full-scale API X65 pipes with simulated corrosion and
gouge defects under internal pressure. The local failure criterion is the stress-modied fracture strain as a function of the stress triaxiality
(dened by the ratio of the hydrostatic stress to the effective stress). Based on detailed nite element (FE) analyses with the proposed
local failure criterion, burst pressures of defective pipes are estimated and compared with experimental data. For pipes with simulated
corrosion defects, FE analysis with the proposed local fracture criterion indicates that predicted failure takes place after the defective
pipes attain maximum loads for all cases, possibly due to the fact that the material has sufcient ductility. For pipes with simulated gouge
defects, on the other hand, it is found that predicted failure takes place before global instability, and the predicted burst pressures are in
good agreement with experimental data, providing condence in the present approach.
r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: API X65 steel; Ductile fracture; Finite element (FE) analysis; Gouge; Local fracture strain criterion
1. Introduction
For tness-for-service analyses of underground gas
pipelines, engineering assessment methods against possible
defects need to be developed, such as corrosion and gouge
(see for example Refs. [13]). Noting that typical gas
pipelines are made of sufciently ductile materials, the netsection limit load approach can be used, where a damaged
pipe is assumed to fail at the load when the net section is in
the fully plastic state [4,5]. Although the net-section limit
load approach is simple for practical application, validation is rather expensive, requiring a large number of fullscale pipe test data. A more fundamental approach would
be based on local failure criteria for ductile fracture. It has
been shown that ductile fracture strongly depends on the
stress state and can be effectively predicted using strain
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 2 3290 3372; fax: +82 31 290 5276.
E-mail address: kimy0308@korea.ac.kr (Y.-J. Kim).
models incorporating the stress state effect [618]. Recently

the authors have proposed a stress-modied fracture strain
for API X65 steel as a function of stress triaxiality (dened
by the ratio of the hydrostatic stress to the effective stress)
[19]. To determine the stress-modied fracture strain,
smooth and notched tensile bars with ve different notch
radii were tested, from which true fracture strains were
determined as a function of the notch radius. Experimental
results were compared with the results from detailed
elastic-plastic, nite element (FE) analyses based on the
large geometry change option, which led to the local failure
criterion in terms of the fracture strain as a function of the
stress triaxiality.
In this paper, the local failure criterion for the API X65
steel, proposed by the authors in Ref. [19], is applied to
predict ductile failure of full-scale pipes with simulated
corrosion and gouge defects under internal pressure. Based
on detailed FE analyses with the proposed local failure
criterion, burst pressures of defective pipes are estimated
and compared with experimental data. Noting that
0308-0161/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpvp.2007.03.002
Please cite this article as: Oh C-K, et al. Ductile failure analysis of API X65 pipes with notch-type defects using a local fracture criterion. Int J Pressure
Vessels Piping (2007), doi:10.1016/j.ijpvp.2007.03.002
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C.-K. Oh et al. / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping ] (]]]]) ]]]]]]
assessment equations for gouge defects are not yet

available, a parametric study is also performed.
2. Stress-modied fracture strain criteria

The authors have recently proposed a local failure
criterion to predict ductile fracture of API X65 steel. The
criterion is in terms of true strain as a function of the stress
triaxiality, and has been determined from results of smooth
and notched round bar tests, combined with those from
detailed FE analyses. The procedures and resulting
criterion are briey summarized below. Detailed information can be found in Ref. [19].
To determine mechanical properties, tensile and Charpy
tests were performed using specimens extracted from a pipe
of outer diameter Do 762 mm and wall thickness
t 17.5 mm (in the longitudinal direction), made of the
American Petroleum Institute (API) 5L X65 steel [20],
popularly used for gas pipelines in Korea. Chemical
compositions and tensile properties of the present API
Table 1
Chemical composition of the API X65 steel, used in the present work
Element (wt %)
C
Mn
Si
Fe
Ceq
0.08
0.019
1.45
0.03
0.31
Balance
0.32
Table 2
Mechanical tensile properties at room temperature of the API X65 steel,
used in the present work
Youngs modulus
E (GPa)
Poissons ratio
n
Yield strength
sy (MPa)
Tensile strength
su (MPa)
210.7
0.3
464.5
563.8
X65 steel are summarized in Tables 1 and 2, respectively.

True stressstrain data at room temperature and values of
the Charpy energy as a function of temperature are also
shown in Fig. 1. Even at 60 1C, the Charpy impact energy
was more than 250 J and all specimens failed by 100%
dimple fracture, indicating that the present material is
sufciently tough. One interesting point is that, as most of
the API X65 gas pipelines in Korea have been built within
the last 10 years, mechanical properties of API X65 gas
pipelines in Korea tend to have quite uniform properties.
To investigate the effect of triaxial stress states on ductility,
tensile tests were also performed using notched bars with
four different notch radii (see Fig. 1), extracted from the
same pipe (outer diameter Do 762 mm and wall thickness
t 17.5 mm). The test results showed that, as the notch
radius decreases, yield and tensile strengths increase, but
engineering strain to fracture decreases (see Fig. 2 for
selected results). Such a trend is due to the fact that the
triaxial stress increases with decreasing notch radius.
To simulate tensile tests of smooth and notched specimens, detailed elastic-plastic, axi-symmetric FE analyses
were performed using ABAQUS [21] with the large
geometry change option, and variations of the triaxial
stress and strain within the specimen were determined. To
avoid problems associated with incompressibility, the
reduced integration element within ABAQUS (2002)
(element type CAX8R) was used. For all cases except for
the case of the 0.2 mm notch radius, elements with a length
of 0.15 mm were uniformly spaced in the minimum section,
which was shown to be sufciently ne for the present
purpose. As the fully plastic state is of main interest, stress
and strain gradients ahead of the notch tip were not so
steep. For the case of the 0.2 mm notch radius, ner meshes
with the smallest element size of 0.05 mm were used in the
notch tip region. Materials were modeled as isotropic
elastic-plastic materials that obey the incremental plasticity
theory. True stressstrain experimental data from smooth
tensile bar tests were directly given in the FE analysis.
Fig. 1. (a) True stressstrain data at room temperature and (b) Charpy energy as a function of temperature for API X65 steel.
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Fig. 3 compares selected experimental engineering stress

strain data from notched tensile bars with the FE results,
suggesting that the FE analysis can simulate tensile
deformation behavior even after necking but cannot
simulate failure of tensile test specimens. Fig. 4 shows the
radial variation of the stress triaxiality and equivalent
strain in the minimum (necked) section of smooth and
notched bars at the point of failure initiation (see Fig. 3 to
identify failure initiation points). The stress triaxiality is
dened by the ratio of the mean normal (hydrostatic)
stress, sm, to the equivalent stress, se
sm s1 s2 s3
,
se
3se
(1)
where si (i 13) denote the principal stresses.

The equivalent stress, se, is expressed in terms of three
Fig. 2. Schematic illustrations: (a) smooth tensile bars; (b) and (c) notched
tensile bars (dimensions in mm).
principal stresses as
0:5
1
se p s1 s2 2 s1 s3 2 s3 s2 2 .
2
(2)
The equivalent strain, ee, on the other hand, is dened by

p
0:5
2
1 2 2 1 3 2 3 2 2 .
e
(3)
3
The distance (r) is normalized with respect to the radius of
the minimum section (a), and the values of r/a 0 and
r/a 1 mean the center and the free surface of the
specimen, respectively. Application of the damage indicator based on the Rice and Tracey formula [7] showed that,
for all cases except for the case of the 0.2 mm notch radius,
failure is expected to occur from the center of the specimen.
For the case of the 0.2 mm notch radius, the notch tip was
found to be the critical site for failure initiation. By
combining FE results with notched bar tensile test ones,
ductile failure criteria in terms of the equivalent strain to
failure as a function of the stress triaxiality were
established. Noting that point-wise information on stress
and strain is obtained from FE analyses, two different
approaches were taken in the previous work. One approach
was to develop a failure criterion based on stress and strain
at the location where failure is most likely to initiate. Such
a point should correspond to the location with the highest
stress triaxiality and strain, for instance. This approach was
termed the critical location criterion. The other approach was based on average stress and strain over the
minimum section, and was termed the section average
criterion. Fig. 5 shows the evolution of the stress
triaxiality in terms of the equivalent strain, measured in
the center of the minimum section of smooth and notched
tensile bars. For the case of the 0.2 mm notch radius,
failure initiation was estimated to occur at the notch tip,
and thus the data are excluded for the critical location
criterion. The results in Fig. 5 show that the stress
triaxiality in the center of the specimen depends strongly
Fig. 3. Comparison of experimental engineering stressstrain data for notched tensile bars with FE results: (a) notched bar with the 3 mm notch radius
and (b) notched bar with the 6 mm notch radius.
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4
Fig. 4. (a) Stress triaxiality distributions and (b) equivalent strain distributions for smooth and notched tensile bars at the failure initiation point,
determined from the FE analyses.
Fig. 5. Variations of the stress triaxiality with the equivalent strain for smooth and notched bar specimens: (a) based on the critical location criterion and
(b) based on the section average criterion.
on the equivalent strain. As a ductile failure criterion

should include the history of stress and strain, average
stress triaxiality is introduced, dened by

Z
sm
1 ef sm
de ,
(4)
se ave ef 0 se
where eef denotes the equivalent strain to failure initiation.
Such a denition incorporates the history effect of stresses
and strains on ductile fracture. For a given notch radius,
the calculated average stress triaxiality is constant, and is
shown in Fig. 5. Fig. 6 summarizes the resulting equivalent
strain to failure initiation (true fracture strain, eef), as a
function of the stress triaxiality for the API X65 steel,
considered in the present work. For the critical location
criterion, fracture strain was expressed as

sm
ef 3:29 exp 1:54
0:10,
(5)
se
whereas for the section average criterion

sm
0:22.
ef 3:41 exp 2:23
se
(6)
Application of Eq. (5) or (6) to tensile test results of

notched bars led to correct predictions of failure loads and
fracture strain for all cases considered, including the case of
the 0.2 mm notch radius.
To predict ductile failure of defective pipes made of API
X65 steels using the present approaches, the proposed
equation, Eq. (5) or (6), should be combined with detailed
elastic-plastic FE analyses from which local stresses and
strains are determined. For instance, from the FE analysis,
stress and strain information can be monitored as a
function of load. Over the loading history, the stress
triaxiality should be averaged according to Eq. (4), which
in turn gives fracture strain from Eq. (5) or (6). When the
(equivalent) strain from the FE analysis equals the fracture
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Fig. 7. Pipe with a simulated corrosion defect.
3.1. Full-scale pipe tests
Fig. 6. True fracture strains (equivalent strain to fracture) as a function of

stress triaxiality [19].
strain estimated from Eq. (5) or (6), then ductile failure

is assumed to initiate. One notable point is that the use of
Eq. (5) will in general give a different failure point from
that of Eq. (6). It will be shown, however, in this paper,
that both equations provide practically the same failure
loads.
The proposed ductile failure criteria are physically sound
and quite simple to use. To validate applicability of the
proposed ductile failure criteria, they are applied to predict
ductile failure of defective pipes made of the API X65 steel
and compared with experimental data from full-scale pipe
tests in the next section. Two kinds of defects are
considered; metal loss due to corrosion and gouge due to
third party damage, which are typical degradation mechanisms for underground gas pipes.
3. Application to failure predictions of corroded API X65

pipes
Development of assessment methods against corrosion
defects has been active in the last two decades. A number of
methods have been proposed, such as ASME B31G [22],
RSTRENG [23] and PCORRC [24]. Note that these
methods are in principle based on limit load analysis of
pipes with corrosion defects. When the pipe materials have
medium- to high-toughness, application of the limit load
approach is plausible and thus it has been popularly used in
practice due to its simplicity. In the present work, however,
pipes with simulated corrosion defects are assessed using
the proposed stress-modied strain criteria and the results
are compared with full-scale pipe test data.
Test pipes were prepared out of API 5L X65 pipelines

from Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) (same as those
from which smooth and notched tensile bars were extracted
in Section 2). A pipeline of total length 12 m was cut into
pieces with 2.3 m length, and both ends were capped by
circumferential welding. The geometrical conguration of
the pipe tested is shown in Fig. 7, and dimensions of test
specimens are summarized in Table 3. The mechanical
defect to simulate corrosion was machined in a rectangular
shape as shown in Fig. 7. The defect was machined to keep
the same thickness at the bottom, and corner edges were
rounded to avoid excessive stress concentration. For
characterizing a corrosion defect, the depth d, the width c
and the length l are used, as depicted in Fig. 7.
The pipes were pressurized by water and burst pressures
were experimentally determined at the point when the
ligament failed. The burst testing equipment is shown in
Fig. 8a. All specimens showed bulging deformation around
the defect area, and nal failure occurred at the bottom of
the defect area with crack-like penetration in the longitudinal direction as shown in Fig. 8b. The defect area
shows a signicant amount of thickness reduction along
the penetration line, probably caused by local necking
prior to nal failure. The resulting burst pressures are
summarized in Table 3. This shows that burst pressures are
affected by the defect depth and length, but the effect of the
defect width is much less signicant.
3.2. FE analysis
Three-dimensional elastic-plastic FE analyses were
performed to simulate the pipe burst tests using ABAQUS
[21]. Fig. 9 depicts a typical FE mesh. A quarter of a full
pipe was modeled due to symmetry conditions. The
machined pit was modeled as a rectangular shape with
rounded corners in accordance with the test specimen, and
the model is designed with 20-node iso-parametric brick
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Table 3
Summary of full-scale tests of pipes with corrosion defect
Pipe no.
DA
DB
DC
LA
LC
CB
CC
Do (mm)
762
L (mm)
2300
t (mm)
l (mm)
c (mm)
d/t
Pexp (MPa)a
Ratio Pmax/Pexpb
Ratio PPCORRC/Pexpc
17.5
200
200
200
100
300
200
200
50
50
50
50
50
100
200
0.25
0.5
0.75
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
24.11
21.76
17.15
24.30
19.80
23.42
22.64
1.025
1.044
1.035
1.025
1.042
0.967
0.989
0.978
0.940
0.902
0.939
0.943
0.874
0.904
Pexp, experimentally-measured burst pressure.

Pmax, predicted burst pressure from FE.
c
PPCORRC, burst pressure predicted from Eq. (7).
b
Fig. 8. (a) Test set-up of full-scale burst test for pipes, (b) defect, and (c) failure.
elements with the reduced integration option. The numbers

of elements and nodes are from 2376 elements/11,673
nodes to 6150 elements/29,688 nodes and through the
thickness, three elements were used in the corroded section.
A monotonically increasing hydrostatic pressure was

applied to the inner surface of the model, together with
axial force to simulate closed cap conditions. True
stressstrain data, determined from uni-axial tension tests,
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Fig. 9. A FE mesh for the pipe with the simulated corrosion defect.
the present approach, occur after the maximum pressure

takes place. The pipe burst test, however, is load
controlled, and thus when the pressure takes its maximum
value, unstable burst takes place. Accordingly the maximum pressure is independent of the use of Eq. (5) or (6). In
fact, such behavior occurs for all cases considered in the
present work. Loaddisplacement records for all cases are
summarized in Fig. 12. This shows that failure occurs after
maximum load, except for two cases (d/t 0.25,
l 200 mm and c 50 mm; and d/t 0.5, l 100 mm
and c 50 mm) where calculations stopped at the maximum load point due to numerical difculties. Even when
calculations were ceased, strains did not reach critical
values. Thus the present approach suggests that failure of
the present API X65 pipes with simulated corrosion is
governed by global plastic instability (zero slope in
loaddisplacement curves), possibly due to sufciently high
ductility of the material considered in the present work (see
Fig. 2b).
Although the present approach suggests that failure is
governed by global plastic instability, and thus these
experimental data are not appropriate to validate the
present approach, at least the maximum loads predicted by
the FE analysis could be compared with experimental data.
Table 3 lists ratios of the maximum pressure (Pmax),
predicted from the FE analysis, to experimental ones
(Pexp). Overall the predicted values are in good agreement
with experimental ones, and differences are no more than
5% for all cases considered. For corroded pipes with
sufcient ductility, one solution to estimate the burst
pressure of pipes with local wall thinning is the so-called
PCORRC equation [24]
"
!!#
2t
d
l
Pf
1 exp 0:157 p
su 1
,
Do
t
Ro t d
(7)
Fig. 10. A typical FE loadradial displacement record for pipes with

simulated corrosion defects with failure points predicted from the present
approach.
as shown in Fig. 1a, were directly given in the FE analysis.

Incremental plasticity with the large geometry change
option was invoked.
where Do and Ro denote the outer diameter and radius,

respectively; and su is the ultimate tensile strength. It is
known that Eq. (7) is based on limit load analysis for pipes
with constant depth thinning under internal pressure.
Table 3 lists ratios of the maximum pressure (PPCORRC),
predicted from Eq. (7), to experimental ones (Pexp). Overall
the predicted values are less than the experimental ones,
but generally by no more than 13%.
3.3. Comparisons
Fig. 10 shows a typical load vs. radial displacement
record, determined from the FE analysis. It also includes
failure points, predicted by the present approach, namely,
when the equivalent strain from the FE analysis equals the
fracture strain according to Eq. (5) or (6). This shows that
radial displacement increases initially with internal pressure, and then the pressure takes its maximum value and
decreases with increasing radial displacement. A typical
deformed shape in the defective region is shown in Fig. 11,
clearly showing local necking. Failure points, predicted by
4. Application to failure predictions of API X65 pipes with

gouges
The second type of defect considered in the present work
is a gouge due to third party damage. The proposed
method is applied to predict the maximum pressure of
pipes with gouges, and the results are compared with fullscale pipe test data. Having sufcient condence, further
parametric FE analyses are performed to provide an
engineering assessment equation for gouge defects.
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Fig. 11. Deformed shape in the defective region for pipes with simulated corrosion defects.
Fig. 12. Effects of defect geometries on FE loadradial displacement records for pipes with simulated corrosion defects.
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4.1. Experiments
Fig. 13 schematically depicts a pipe with a simulated

gouge, and some important dimensions are summarized in
Table 4. The geometry of the pipe is the same as that in
Section 3, having the diameter of Do 762 mm, the
thickness of t 17.5 mm, and the total length of
L 2300 mm. The gouge is characterized by a 451 V-notch
with a circular notch radius of 2 mm. In all tests, the depth
of the gouge is xed as d 8.75 mm which is 50% of the
pipe thickness (d/t 0.5). The axial length of the gouge, on

the other hand, was systematically varied from 50 to
600 mm. The pipes were pressurized by water and burst
pressures were experimentally determined at the point when
the ligament failed. Fig. 14 depicts photos of the gouge
before and after the test. During the test, strain values were
monitored using strain gauges, as shown in Fig. 14a. Note
that two gauges, S1 and S2, were circumferentially located
24.9 and 54.9 mm, respectively, away from the center of the
gouge. The measured maximum pressures from full-scale
Fig. 13. Schematic illustrations for pipes with gouge.
Fig. 15. A typical nite element mesh for pipes with gouge.
Table 4
Summary of full-scale tests of pipes with gouge defect
Pipe no.
MNA
MNB
MNC
MND
MNE
a
Do (mm)
762
L (mm)
2300
t (mm)
d/t
l (mm)
Pexp (MPa)a
Ppred/Pexp Eq. (5)b
Ppred/Pexp Eq. (6)b
17.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
100
200
300
400
600
24.68
22.48
17.70
18.14
16.57
0.979
0.960
1.103
1.003
1.020
0.983
0.973
1.117
1.011
1.021
Pexp, experimentally-measured burst pressure.

Ppred, predicted burst pressure.
Fig. 14. (a) Initial gouge defect and strain measurement locations, and (b) gouge at failure.
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pipe tests are summarized in Table 4, which shows that the

burst pressure decreases with increasing gouge length.
4.2. FE analysis
The pipes with gouges were modeled using FEs. A typical
FE mesh is shown in Fig. 15, with a detailed view of the
defective region. The number of elements and nodes in FE
meshes were from 7290 elements/33,838 nodes to 11,345
elements/52,145 nodes, depending on the gouge length. For
all cases, however, the smallest element size in the defective
area was xed at 0.32 mm 0.67 mm 1.19 mm. It is
believed that the present mesh size is appropriate for
engineering purposes, as meshing using smaller mesh sizes
with appropriate aspect ratios was quite difcult due to
increasing number of elements. Internal pressure was
applied to the inner surface of the pipe, together with end
forces to simulate the closed end condition.
4.3. Comparisons
Fig. 16 compares axial and hoop strains measured from
tests (S1 and S2) with FE results for selected cases. Note
that the results for the MNC test are the worst, and for all
other cases the FE results agree very well with experimental
values, as in the MNA case. From FE analyses, the
equivalent strain and stress triaxiality were monitored as a
function of internal pressure. Fig. 17 shows typical radial
variations of stress triaxiality and equivalent strain. In
these gures, the radial distance is normalized with respect
to the minimum ligament size, and the values of 0 and 1
denote the inner surface and the notch tip of the pipe,
respectively. These show that the equivalent strain takes
the maximum value at the notch tip, but the maximum
value of stress triaxiality occurs somewhere in between the
notch tip and the center. To apply the critical location
criterion, stress and strain information at all points in the
minimum ligament were monitored to nd out the failure
initiation location. For the present cases, failure initiation
is found to occur always at the tip of the notch, and thus
the failure criterion is checked using stress and strain
information extracted from the rst element at the notch
tip. For the criterion based on averaged information, stress
and strain were averaged over the minimum ligament from
the notch tip to the inner surface. Fig. 18 shows typical
variations of the stress triaxiality with equivalent strain for
Fig. 16. Comparison of strain variations measured from pipe tests with FE results: (a) MNA pipe test and (b) MNC pipe test.
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Fig. 17. Distributions of stress triaxiality and equivalent strain for pipes with gouge: (a) MNB pipe test and (b) MNE pipe test
Fig. 18. Variations of the stress triaxiality with the equivalent strain for pipes with gouge for the critical location criterion and the section average
criterion: (a) MNA pipe test and (b) MNE pipe test.
selected cases. This also includes constant stress triaxiality

values averaged over the loading history according to
Eq. (4). Note that for other cases, trends are quite similar
to those in Fig. 18. It can be seen that the magnitude of the
stress triaxiality does not depend on the equivalent strain
and is almost constant, and accordingly is also close to the
average stress triaxiality, dened by Eq. (4). Another
notable point is that the values of the stress triaxiality are
quite low: for the critical location criterion, it is about 0.55,
and for the section average criterion, is about 0.85. Such
low values are typical for pipes under internal pressure.
Fig. 19 shows radial displacements, determined from FE
analysis, as a function of pressure. Note that the average
stress triaxiality for the critical location criterion is lower
than that for the section average criterion. However, the
magnitude of strain for the critical location criterion is
much higher than that for the section average criterion. As
a result, the criterion based on the critical location provides
a slightly lower burst pressure than that based on the
section average, although they are practically the same.

The results also show that failure predicted by the present
approach occurs before global plastic instability points
(characterized by zero slope in loaddisplacement curves).
This is in contrast to the cases of pipes with simulated
corrosion defects in Section 3, where failure is indeed
governed by global plastic instability. Estimated burst
pressures are compared with experimentally measured data
in Table 4 and in Fig. 20. Note that the pressure is
normalized with respect to the theoretical limit pressure of
a plain pipe
t
t sy su
Po
sf
,
(8)
Rm
Rm
2
where sf, sy and su denote the ow strength, yield strength
and ultimate tensile strength, respectively. As shown in
Table 4, the estimated burst pressures are in good
agreement with experimentally measured ones with differences less than 3%, except the MNC case where the
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of the proposed ductile fracture criteria to defect assessment of gas pipelines.

Noting that an engineering assessment equation for
gouge defects is not currently available, gouge defects
could be assessed using an expression of failure pressure of
axial surface cracked pipes under internal pressure,
assuming that the gouge is idealized as an axial crack.
One popular expression in [5] is given by
s

1 a=t
2
,
(9)
; M 1 1:61
Pf Po
1 a=t1=M
4Rm t
where a and denote the crack depth and length,
respectively. As the gouge is idealized as an axial crack,
Eq. (9) can be used to estimate failure pressure, simply by
replacing the crack depth a with the gouge depth d.
Resulting predictions are compared in Fig. 20, showing
that Eq. (9) gives conservative (lower) failure loads, as
expected.
4.4. Assessment equations against gouge defects
Fig. 19. Variations of pressure with radial displacement, determined from
the FE analyses, indicating predicted failure points.
A large number of full-scale tests might be needed to

develop an engineering assessment equation against
gouges, which is not only expensive but also time
consuming. Having sufcient condence in the use of the
proposed approach to assess gouge defects, systematic
parametric FE analyses are performed to provide an
engineering assessment equation for gouge defects. For
the parametric study, the dimensions of the pipe are xed
to those in the previous cases; the diameter of
Do 762 mm, the thickness of t 17.5 mm, and the total
Fig. 20. Comparison of experimental burst pressure for pipes with gouge
with the FE results and Eq. (9).
difference is as much as 12%. Although such a difference

is still not signicant, it can be seen from Fig. 16 that the
experimental data for the MNC case are somewhat lower
than expected from the trend curve. Good agreement
shown in this example provides condence in application
Fig. 21. Comparison of burst pressure solutions with FE results for pipes
with gouge.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
length of L 2300 mm, and the axial length of the gouge

() is systematically varied from 100 to 600 mm. The gouge
depth (d), on the other hand, is varied from 4.375 to
13.125 mm, leading to the relative gouge depth (d/t) from
0.25 to 0.75. A total of 25 FE calculations are performed.
The burst pressures, resulting from the present FE
analyses, are shown in Fig. 21. In Fig. 21, failure loads,
predicted using Eq. (9) assuming that the gouge is idealized
by the crack, are shown. Predictions using Eq. (9) are quite
conservative, and the trend of the gouge length effect is
somewhat different. Inspired by Eq. (9), the following
equation is proposed to estimate the burst pressure of API
X65 pipes with gouge defects based on the FE results
s

1 d=t
d 2
Pf Po
.
; M g 1 0:64
1 d=t1=M g
t 4Rm t
(10)
Resulting predictions are compared with the FE results in
Fig. 21. Eq. (10) agrees well with the FE results for larger d/
t, but tends to be slightly conservative for smaller d/t and
larger . It should be noted that the FE results are for
specic values of pipe geometry (Do 762 mm and
t 17.5 mm, giving Rm/t 21.3) and for the specic API
X65 steel considered in the present work, and thus the use
of Eq. (10) should be limited. In particular, Eq. (10) does
not include the term related to the materials toughness and
thus should only be used to assess gouges in gas pipes made
of the particular API X65 steel considered in the present
work. On the other hand, as noted, most of the API X65
gas pipelines in Korea have been built within the last 10
years, and mechanical properties of API X65 gas pipelines
in Korea tend to have quite uniform properties. Thus, Eq.
(10) would be useful to assess gouges in API X65 gas
pipelines in Korea.
5. Concluding remarks
In this paper, a local failure criterion for the API X65
steel is applied to predict ductile failure of full-scale pipes
with simulated corrosion and gouge defects under internal
pressure. The local failure criterion is the stress-modied
fracture strain for the API X65 steel as a function of the
stress triaxiality (dened by the ratio of the hydrostatic
stress to the effective stress). Based on detailed FE analyses
with the proposed local failure criteria, burst pressures of
defective pipes are estimated and compared with full-scale
pipe test data.
For pipes with simulated corrosion defects, FE analysis
with the proposed local fracture criterion indicates that
predicted failure takes place after the defective pipes attain
maximum loads for all cases, and thus the present
approach suggests that pipe failure is governed by global
instability. This is because the material considered in this
paper has sufcient ductility. Nevertheless the maximum
pressures, predicted from the present FE analysis, agree
well with experimental data. For pipes with simulated
13
gouge defects, on the other hand, it is found that predicted

failure takes place before global instability, and the
predicted burst pressures are in good agreement with
experimental data, providing condence in the present
approach. A parametric study is performed, from which a
simple equation is proposed to predict burst pressure for
gouge defects in gas pipes made of the particular API X65
steel considered in the present work.
The methodology of predicting ductile failure of
defective structures using a local fracture strain criteria is
not a new but an old concept. The signicance of the
present work, however, is validation of the methodology by
systematic comparison with full-scale pipe test data. The
results in this paper suggest that the local fracture strain
criteria could be successfully applied to predict ductile
failure of pipes with notch-type defects and could reduce
expensive and time-consuming full-scale tests. It should be
also noted that the developed fracture strain criteria should
be applied to the specic material (API X65 steel)
considered in the present work. As API X65 gas pipelines
in Korea tend to have quite uniform mechanical properties,
the developed fracture strain criterion is at least useful to
assess notch-type defects in gas pipelines within Korea. For
instance, one interesting application area is to assess
combined gouge and dent. Systematic full-scale experiments are quite difcult due to the many variables
involved, and the present approach could be used to
develop assessment equations with limited experimental
data. For another material, the same procedure can be
taken to develop the local fracture strain criteria specic to
that material.
In the present work, only notch-type defects, not cracklike defects, are considered. Although the present approach
can be applied to crack-like defect problems in principle,
micro-mechanical based damage models, such as the model
based on Gurson [10], are popularly used these days and
seem to be better suited. The authors have also developed a
micro-mechanical model of ductile fracture for the same
steel using the GursonTvergaardNeedleman (GTN)
model [25].
Acknowledgments
This research is performed under the program of Basic
Atomic Energy Research Institute (BAERI), is a part of the
Nuclear R&D Programs funded by the Ministry of Science
& Technology (MOST) of Korea, and under the program
of the Brain Korea 21 Project in 2006.
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Ductile Failure Analysis of API X65 Pipes With Notch-Type Defects Using A Local Fracture Criterion

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International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping ] (]]]]) ]]]]]]

Ductile failure analysis of API X65 pipes with notch-type defects

E-mail address: kimy0308@korea.ac.kr (Y.-J. Kim).

models incorporating the stress state effect [618]. Recently

assessment equations for gouge defects are not yet

2. Stress-modied fracture strain criteria

X65 steel are summarized in Tables 1 and 2, respectively.

Fig. 3 compares selected experimental engineering stress

where si (i 13) denote the principal stresses.

The equivalent strain, ee, on the other hand, is dened by

on the equivalent strain. As a ductile failure criterion

whereas for the section average criterion

Application of Eq. (5) or (6) to tensile test results of

Fig. 7. Pipe with a simulated corrosion defect.

3.1. Full-scale pipe tests

Fig. 6. True fracture strains (equivalent strain to fracture) as a function of

strain estimated from Eq. (5) or (6), then ductile failure

3. Application to failure predictions of corroded API X65

Test pipes were prepared out of API 5L X65 pipelines

Pexp, experimentally-measured burst pressure.

elements with the reduced integration option. The numbers

A monotonically increasing hydrostatic pressure was

the present approach, occur after the maximum pressure

Fig. 10. A typical FE loadradial displacement record for pipes with

as shown in Fig. 1a, were directly given in the FE analysis.

where Do and Ro denote the outer diameter and radius,

4. Application to failure predictions of API X65 pipes with

Fig. 13 schematically depicts a pipe with a simulated

pipe thickness (d/t 0.5). The axial length of the gouge, on

Fig. 13. Schematic illustrations for pipes with gouge.

Ppred/Pexp Eq. (5)b

Ppred/Pexp Eq. (6)b

Pexp, experimentally-measured burst pressure.

pipe tests are summarized in Table 4, which shows that the

selected cases. This also includes constant stress triaxiality

section average, although they are practically the same.

of the proposed ductile fracture criteria to defect assessment of gas pipelines.

A large number of full-scale tests might be needed to

difference is as much as 12%. Although such a difference

length of L 2300 mm, and the axial length of the gouge

gouge defects, on the other hand, it is found that predicted

[3] API. API RP579recommended practice for tness-for-service.

[15] Anderson TL. Fracture mechanics-fundamentals and applications.

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