Stress Intensity Factor Solutions for Circumferential Surface Cracks With Large Aspect Ratios in Pipes Subjected to Global Bending

In some cracks attributed to primary water stress corrosion cracking, the crack depth a was greater than half-length of the crack 0.5ℓ. This paper presents details of stress intensity factor solutions for circumferential surface cracks with large aspect ratios a/ℓ in piping system subjected to global bending. The stress intensity factor solutions for semi-elliptical surface cracks were obtained by finite element analyses with quadratic hexahedron elements. Solutions at the deepest and the surface points of the cracks with various aspect ratio (0.5 ≤ a/ℓ ≤ 4.0), crack depth ratio (0.01 ≤ a/t ≤ 0.8) and pipe sizes ( 1/80 ≤ t/R_i ≤ 1/2) were investigated, where t and R_i are wall thickness and inner radius of pipe, respectively. Proposed stress intensity factor solutions for cracks with a/ℓ = 0.5 are consistent with the values reported in the previous study. The solutions developed in this study are widely applicable to various engineering problems related to crack evaluation in piping systems.