Safety assessment of allowable through-wall crack angles for pipes subjected to tensile loading

Hasegawa, Kunio; Strnadel, B.*; Lacroix, V.*; Udyawar, A.*

Fully plastic collapse stresses for high toughness pipes with circumferential cracks subjected to tensile loading can be predicted by Limit Load Criteria. The Limit Load Criteria are provided by the ASME Code Section XI. Allowable membrane stresses for part-through cracks were determined by plastic collapse stresses in combination with safety factors. The allowable stresses decrease with increasing angles of the part-through cracks. When crack angles are large, the allowable stresses of the part-through cracks are larger than the collapse stresses of through-wall cracks. For such large cracks, allowable stresses greater than the collapse stresses cause instability, and are thus detrimental to pipe integrity, especially in thin-wall pipes. In order to avoid the anxiety, it is necessary to establish maximum allowable crack angles. This paper proposes maximum allowable crack angles for allowable stresses.