Reference stress based fracture mechanics analysis for circumferential through-wall cracked pipes: Experimental validation

This paper presents experimental validation of the reference stress based J estimates for circumferential through-wall cracked (TWC) pipes, recently proposed by the authors. Using the pipe test data for circumferential TWC pipes given in the Pipe Fracture Encyclopedia [Pipe Fracture Test Data, vol. 3, Battelle, 1997], the predicted fracture initiation and instability loads according to the proposed reference stress method are compared with experimental ones as well as predictions according to the reference stress method embedded in R6. The results show that both the R6 method and the proposed method give conservative estimates of initiation and maximum moments for circumferential TWC pipes, compared to experimental data. For longer cracks, the proposed method reduces the conservatism embedded in the estimated J according to the R6 method, and the resulting predictions are less conservative, compared to those from the R6 method. For shorter cracks, on the other hand, the proposed method reduces possible non-conservatism embedded in estimated J according to the R6 method, and the resulting predictions are slightly more conservative.