Fracture Behavior of Welded Pipes with Local Wall Thinning

감육을 가지는 배관 용접부의 파괴거동

Fracture behaviors of pipes with local wall thinning are very important for the integrity of nuclear power plant. In pipes of energy plants, sometimes, the local wall thinning may result from severe erosion-corrosion (E/C) damage. However, the effects of local wall thinning on strength and fracture behaviors of piping system were not well studied. In this paper, the monotonic bending tests were performed of full-scale welded and unwelded carbon steel pipes with local wall thinning. A monotonic bending load was applied to straight pipe specimens by four-point loading at ambient temperature without internal pressure. The observed failure modes were divided into four types; ovalization, crack initiation/growth after ovalization, local buckling and crack initiation/growth after local buckling. Also, the strengths of welded and unwelded piping system with local wall thinning were evaluated.