Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

J-integral tearing instability analyses for 8-inch diameter ASTM A106 steel pipe

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6924448

An experimental investigation was performed to evaluate the applicability of using J-Integral tearing instability analysis to describe the fracture behavior of 8-inch diameter, nuclear grade, ASTM A106 steel pipe. J-Integral tests were performed on 1/2 T, 1 T, and 2 T plan compact specimens and compared to pipe bend tests. Two different J-Integral analyses were used to describe fracture behavior. In one analysis, the material was modelled by assuming elastic-perfectly plastic behavior, while a second analysis utilized measurements of mechanical response of the loaded structure including hardening of the steel. A series of nine fracture tests were performed on the 8-inch diameter pipes with computerized data acquisition of load, deflection and crack length. Crack lengths were measured using elastic compliance, and direct current potential drop techniques simultaneously. Evaluation of the J-Integral tearing instability analysis was performed using J versus T plots of each test. Results indicate that compact specimen J/sub I/-R curve test results agree with the J/sub I/-R curves from full size pipe bend tests. Further, J-Integral tearing instability analysis can accurately describe the ductile tearing behavior of 8-inch ASTM A106 steel pipe provided the actual load, displacement, crack length and hardening behavior is available. Such an analysis with assumed elastic fully plastic behavior appears to produce conservative results.

Research Organization:
David W. Taylor Naval Ship Research and Development Center, Annapolis, MD (USA)
OSTI ID:
6924448
Report Number(s):
NUREG/CR-3740; ON: DE84900940
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English