Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By: C S Wiesner (1), S J Maddox (1), W Xu (1), G A Webster (4) and J D Harrison (1) (1) TWI, (2)Imperial College, (3)UMIST, (4)BG Technology
(2)
, F M Burdekin
(3)
, R M Andrews
http://www.twi.co.uk/technical-knowledge/published-papers/engineering-critical-analyses-to-bs7910-the-uk-guide-on-methods-for-assessing-the-acceptability-of-flaws-in-metallic-structures/ Paper published in International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping, vol.77, no.14-15. December 2000. pp.883-893
Abstract
The well-known fitness-for-purpose standard PD 6493:1991 has been revised and is now published as the British Standards Guide BS 7910. The revisions include modifications to the fracture and fatigue assessment clauses and many additional appendices have been added to complete the guidance provided. The PD 6539:1994 procedures for high temperature assessment have been incorporated as clause 10. This paper presents a brief historical review of the UK developments of fitness-for-purpose methods and outlines the modifications to BS 7910. In addition, the new BS 7910 fracture assessment clause is validated using a series of wide plate tests.
1. Introduction
The fracture mechanics based fitness-for-purpose (FFP) approach, also referred to as Engineering Critical Analysis (ECA), enables the significance of flaws to be assessed in terms of structural integrity. The ECA concept has undergone extensive developments in the past 30 years or so and the widely used PD6493 [1] procedure has been produced in the UK. The document has recently been revised and is now published as BS 7910 'Guide on methods for assessing the acceptability of flaws in metallic structures' [2] . This paper provides a brief historical overview of engineering critical assessment methods; outlines the additions and changes which have been made to the procedures; and presents wide plate validation results of the BS 7910 fracture/plastic collapse clauses compared with results obtained using PD6493:1991 procedures.
Furthermore, repair of innocuous imperfections has been known to introduce more deleterious defects which have led to structural failure. This was the background to the publication of reference 3. Following its publication, the British Standards Institution set up a committee to determine whether it was indeed possible to draft a rational acceptance standard. Once it had reported in the affirmative, the work of drafting began with the establishment of the British Standards Institution's (BSI) WEE/37 Committee in 1970. The Committee deliberated for the next ten years. During this time much research was undertaken throughout the world and early experience was being gained in the application of the techniques to industrial problems. This research and experience increased the confidence of the Committee in its ability to produce a recommendation which would lead to structures which were both safer and more economical than those where the arbitrary acceptance standards were rigorously imposed. In 1980, PD6493 [4] was published. It gave methods which could be adopted by agreement between contracting parties whereby imperfections could be assessed on a fitness-for-purpose basis. PD6493:1980 was, in British Standards terminology, a Published Document. This was in recognition of the fact that much research was still on-going. Published Documents have less force than Standards or Guides. PD6493:1980 concentrated on the assessment of imperfections with regard to their possible effects on failure by brittle fracture and fatigue. The treatment for brittle fracture was based on measurements of fracture toughness in terms of K Ic or CTOD (crack tip opening displacement) and utilised the CTOD design curve proposed by Burdekin and Dawes [5] . Failure by plastic collapse of the remaining net section was treated only very briefly and as an entirely separate failure mode from brittle fracture. General and simplified procedures were given for making fatigue assessments using an integration of the Paris fatigue crack growth law to predict whether the given imperfection would grow to failure within the design life. The simplified procedure gave a series of S-N curves representing 'quality categories'. Flaw sizes were given for each category which would be acceptable for a component which was required to meet the associated S-N curve as a fatigue design requirement. This approach was recommended for the treatment of non-planar flaws (slag inclusions and porosity). Acceptable sizes of planar flaw were also given and, for these, the Paris law integration had been carried out for the user. Other failure modes - leakage, corrosion fatigue, stress corrosion, buckling and creep - were all treated very briefly. The publication of PD6493:1980 was a milestone in that, for the first time, a standardised framework was laid out, which could form the basis of agreement between contracting parties and licensing bodies for assessing imperfections found during fabrication. In parallel with the development of PD6493:1980, the UK Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) was developing its own approach to the assessment of imperfections with regard to static ductile and brittle fracture. This was being driven primarily by the need to demonstrate the integrity of nuclear pressure vessels and of large rotor forgings. These developments culminated in the publication, in 1976, of Revision 1 of the so-called R6 procedure, now in its third revision [6] . The fourth revision is due to be published in 2000. This combined the assessment of brittle and ductile fracture by using the so-called 'two parameter approach'. It utilised a Failure Assessment Diagram (FAD) in which the vertical and horizontal axes were the ratios of the fracture driving force to the fracture toughness and of the applied load to the plastic collapse loads respectively. Failure was predicted when either of these ratios exceeded unity. Interaction between brittle behaviour and plastic collapse was allowed for by a curve derived from a strip yield analysis. The advantage of this approach over that in PD6493:1980 was that the two static failure modes were treated explicitly in one operation. Also, the FAD could be used to assess how the assessment point approached the failure locus as stress or flaw size increased. This is a useful feature, since it indicates the extent to which failure would be dominated by brittle fracture or by ductile instability. R6 quickly gained international recognition in the power generation industry, whilst PD6493:1980 was more widely used in other industries - oil and gas in particular.
The document has been completely re-written to improve clarity and usability, and to incorporate modern flaw assessment technology, including a number of methods originally published in revision 3 of the R6 procedure. Since feedback from users of PD6493 indicated that the section dealing with stresses caused confusion, in BS 7910 special attention was paid to the description of the stresses to be determined and how they are actually used in an assessment. The changes include a new definition of peak stress, to mean the highest stress at a structural discontinuity rather than the elevation in stress it causes. The relevant parts of the fracture and fatigue assessment clauses have also been revised to reflect the changes introduced into BS 7910.
Y)]}
-0.5
where L = 0.0375 (1 u Y/1000) is the estimated length of the Lders plateau (this relation is restricted to u Y < 800N/mm 2), (Note) (Note: There is a typographical error in BS7910: 1999 (Amendment 1) which states a validity limit of 976N.mm 2; users of BS7910 should correct this limit to 800N/mm 2) u Y is the upper yield strength (if this is unavailable, it is conservative to use the yield or 0.2% proof strength), and r(L r>1) = r(L r= ) L or K r(L r>1) = K r(L r= ) L where N = 0.3 (1 - Y/ u) is the lower bound strain hardening exponent estimated tensile strength ratio, Y/ u.
[7] r r (N-1)/2N
(N-1)/2N
For continuous yielding, the failure assessment line is similar to that used in PD6493:1991, Level 3. L is now used in place of S r for plastic collapse predictions at Level 2, see Fig.2.
Level 3 of BS 7910 (ductile tearing instability assessment) remains unchanged with respect to PD6493:1991, with Level 3A and 3B dependent on the type of stress-strain data available as for Level 2. A novelty of Level 3 options is the addition of the R6 Option 3 method, which becomes Level 3C in BS 7910. In this approach, the FAD and driving force may be derived from elastic-plastic finite element analysis to give more accurate predictions of structural behaviour.
BS 7910 includes 21 Annexes, several of which originate from the R6 procedure. Those which are particularly relevant to fracture assessments include flaw re-characterisation rules, a leak-beforebreak analysis procedure, advice on calculating reserve factors and performing sensitivity analyses, and consideration of mixed mode loading. Others provide a more extensive collection of reference stress (limit load) and stress intensity factor solutions, including solutions from three-dimensional finite element analyses (FEA) for weld toe cracks, guidance on the treatment of weld metal/parent material strength mismatch and on the fracture toughness testing of different areas of weldments. Profiles of residual stress distributions for common joint configurations are given and new guidance has been written, again based on work in SINTAP, on correlations between Charpy energy and fracture toughness including incorporation of the so-called Master Curve concept [8,9] . There is also improved consideration of proof testing and warm pre-stressing and guidance on reporting the results of flaw assessments. The lengthwise flaw interaction criteria for fracture assessment have been relaxed compared to PD6493:1991 based on the findings that there is almost no crack driving force enhancement of adjacent flaws in this direction.
New, simplified conservative (upper bound) single-branch Paris laws are also provided, for convenience. They relate to high R-values (R 0.5) in order to give conservative estimates of fatigue crack growth in welded structures. As in fatigue design, these are assumed to contain high tensile residual stresses and hence to experience a high effective R under any fatigue loading. The basic law for ferritic steels in air gives a slightly higher crack growth rates than the corresponding law in PD6493:1991, based on more recent experimental data obtained at R = 0.5. Apart from air, the recommended laws also cover ferritic steels in seawater and at elevated temperature. Austenitic steels can be treated using the simplified law for ferritic steels in air, but no advice is given for other environments. New data did not justify any changes to the recommended stress intensity factor threshold values in PD6493:1991, except that a value of zero is now recommended for steels in freely corroding seawater. However, it is now strongly recommended that crack growth rate and threshold values for high R values are used when assessing a flaw in a welded structure, to allow for the influence of high tensile residual stresses. Advice on the derivation of fatigue crack growth laws and threshold values for non-ferrous metals is also given, using correlations based on relative Young's modulus values. Allowance has been made for the extensive evidence now available which indicates that there is no need to impose the flaw interaction criteria in PD6493:1991 in a fatigue assessment. Thus, multiple flaws are assessed separately without any consideration of flaw interaction [11,12] . The fatigue assessment method referred to in PD6493:1991 as the 'Simplified Procedure', which relates the required and actual fatigue performance of a flaw to a grid of quality category (stress versus endurance) S-N curves, is retained, but it is now referred to as 'Assessment Using Quality Categories'. For consistency with Eurocode design S-N curves, the reference stress range associated with each quality category curve now corresponds to N = 2 x 10 6, rather than 10 5, cycles. New graphs for assessing planar flaws using the simplified fracture mechanics method have been introduced, based on the new upper bound Paris fatigue crack growth law. The acceptance levels for non-planar flaws (slag inclusions, porosity and undercut) are still consistent with available experimental data, and apart from extending the thickness range over which the undercut acceptance limits apply, they are unchanged in BS 7910.
exhaustion in the uncracked ligament to a suitable fraction and prevention of fracture by restricting the amount of cracking allowed.
The first published document giving recommendations for partial safety factors in connection with fracture mechanics-based structural integrity assessments was PD6493:1991. The recommendations were derived as part of work by Glasgow University/UMIST [15] on defect assessment methodology for offshore structures in the late 1980s and were included as part of an optional appendix in PD6493. The procedure in use at the time involved the then Level 2 assessment curve based on the flow strength parameter S r, applied to results of wide plate tests. In view of changes to the PD6493 fracture assessment clause and also because of developments in structural Eurocodes it was appropriate that a reassessment of partial safety factors should be carried out. There is a general target reliability index value adopted in Eurocodes for ultimate limit state conditions in structures for which failure would have major consequences which corresponds to a failure probability of about 7 x 10 -5. Since this value has been derived to deal with the appropriate uncertainties in loading for plastic collapse failure, the same PSFs were included for fracture/plastic collapse failure to ensure consistency with existing procedures.
safety factors were calibrated against wide plate test results, rather than the failure assessment curve and this explains some of the differences.
General corrosion damage in pipelines reduces wall thickness, either locally or globally, resulting in a reduction of load bearing capacity and/or stiffness of the pipeline structure compared with the design conditions. The presence of corrosion damage has therefore safety and cost implications with respect to the operation of high pressure transportation and storage systems. Whilst there are a number of established engineering methods which are suitable for the assessment of corroded pipes, pipelines and cylindrical vessels, significant developments in the areas of flaw detection and fitness-for-purpose assessment techniques have been made which enable pipeline companies to determine the remaining strength of corroded pipelines more accurately and with higher confidence. More specifically, a large group sponsored project has been managed by BG Technology, the results of which have been incorporated in BS 7910 Annex G.
General procedure
The general methodology for assessing corroded pipeline is illustrated by a flow chart, as shown in Fig.4. The methods recommended in this procedure are classified into three levels of assessment, depending on required accuracy of the assessment and the level of information available. Limitations of the methods and safety factors recommended are included in Annex G of BS 7910.
Fig.4. BS7910 Annex G assessment procedure for assessment of corroded pipe and pipelines
The principal changes are as follows: The procedures now have the enhanced status of a 'Guide'. This unfortunately, means that the well known numbering 'PD6493' will change to 'BS 7910'. The title has been changed to 'Guide on methods for assessing flaws in metallicstructures'. This is because the committee considered that the methods were as applicable to flaws in castings, forgings, etc, as to flaws in welds. The scope now formalises existing practice so that the document can be used not only to assess initial fabrication flaws, but also for those found as a result of in-service inspection. Thus a major application of the document willbe to enable decisions to be made on life extension of ageing plant. The treatment for fracture has been even more closely aligned with the R6 approach. In 1994, another BS Published Document was issued, PD6539 [7] , giving methods for assessing flaws in high temperature plant. This has now been integrated into BS 7910, so that creep crack growth can now be assessed. A number of annexes (twenty-one in total) have been added, providing state-of-the-art methods for engineering critical analysis and increasing the scope of the document. Guidance on the assessment of generalised corrosion in pipelines and vessels has been introduced in Annex G.
4. Validation of BS 7910 fracture assessment procedures using TWI wide plate data
Validation of the BS 7910 fracture and collapse assessment procedures has been carried out against TWI experimental data of large-scale wide plate fracture tests. Relevant small-scale fracture toughness specimens were used to provide appropriate input data. Eighty-two wide plate specimens have been assessed at Level 2A. The TWI software Crackwise 3 which automates the BS 7910 assessment procedures has been used to carry out the appraisal. The wide plate tests cover a wide range of materials, flaw type/location, load configurations and test temperatures. Materials used were pressure vessel steels, C-Mn structural steels, pipeline steels, aluminium alloys and type 316 stainless steels and their weldments. Flaw types included through thickness cracks, semi-elliptical surface
cracks, extended long surface cracks. The flaw location was in parent material, weld and HAZ. Applied loads included externally applied tension, bending or combined tension and bending and welding residual stresses. The test temperatures covered the entire transition range from the lower to the upper shelf. The failure points of all eighty-two wide plate specimens were predicted correctly by BS 7910 Level 2A assessment procedures, and both K-based and CTOD based assessment routes produced conservative predictions. The K-based results by BS 7910 are presented graphically in Fig.5a. In comparison, assessments to PD6493 Level 2 led to some non-conservative failure predictions, see Fig.5b. It was well known that the PD6493 Level 2 FAD can result in marginal failure predictions in the 'knee' region of the FAD for high work hardening materials. This was one of the reasons to discontinue its use in BS 7910.
Fig.5. Fracture assessment of TWI wide plate data results based on K or J fracture toughness values: (a) to BS7910 Level 2A; (b) to PD6493 Level 2.
Figure 5a shows that the degree of conservatism in the BS 7910 fracture assessment procedure varies and can be quite small. This implies that to ensure a safe deterministic fracture assessment, conservative approaches must be adopted. The current assessment results have been obtained under the following conditions: fracture toughness data were obtained from high-constraint SENB specimens; the minimum value of three tests or the second lowest value of six tests were employed. If the population of fracture toughness tests is large enough to enable a statistical analysis, the mean minus one standard deviation value was used. Caution is advised when using maximum load fracture toughness data for high work hardening materials; rather, it is recommended to apply Level 3 tearing assessments. In the as-welded condition, residual stresses must be considered not only for cracks located in weld metal and HAZ, but also for cracks close to the weld. The reduction of welding residual stresses after proof tests should be according to BS 7910 Annex O. As recommended in BS 7910 for cracks in the weld metal, a conservative approach is to use the lower properties of parent and weld metals for calculating the collapse parameter L r, even if the weld metal over-matches the parent material as recommended in BS 7910 Annex I. It is recommended to use only validated and well-established stress intensity factor and collapse load solutions, and to be aware of the validity range of solutions for unusual geometries given in BS 7910 Annex M and P.
5. Outlook
The British Standards Institution has recently submitted BS 7910 to the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN). Because of differences in the methods of treating fracture in various European countries, the CEN committee (TC121/WG14) responsible for this topic at present considers that it would not be possible to publish a universally acceptable standard immediately. It was therefore decided to issue BS 7910 as a CEN Technical Report with a view to commence drafting a CEN Standard in the near future. In the meantime, the major three-year European collaborative research project, Structural Integrity Assessment Procedures for European Industry (SINTAP), has been completed. The project consortium consists of seventeen partners from nine different European countries. The project aimed at resolving national differences in fracture assessment methods and at arriving at a consensus approach. Another large European collaborative project to resolve national differences in assessment methods for High Temperature Defect Assessment (HIDA) is also nearing completion. Important developments are also taking place in the United States. The American Petroleum Institute has just published a document, API 579 [12] , giving recommendations for fitness-for-purpose evaluation of pressurised equipment in the refinery and chemical industry. Fitness-for-purpose is defined as the ability to demonstrate the structural integrity of a component containing a flaw. API 579 is mainly targeted at the assessment of ageing plant, a subject of increasing importance. Some of the methods are similar to those contained in BS 7910. However, API 579 devotes more attention to specific situations which arise in ageing petrochemical plant. Examples are: general metal loss and locally thinned areas, blisters and laminations and fire damage. Valuable guidance is also given on the possible remedial measures to be taken for each of the flaw types and failure mechanisms covered by the document. In addition, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers is working on a document dealing with post-construction inspection. Details of this are not yet available. The outcome of the European collaborative projects mentioned above will be combined with input from the mentioned international procedures and the existing BS 7910 methods to begin drafting of a CEN or international procedure in due course.
6. References
1. PD6493:1991: 'Guidance on methods for assessing the acceptability of flaws in fusion welded structures'. British Standards Institution, London, 1991. 2. BS 7910:1999: (incorporating Amendment No.1) 'Guide on methods for assessing the acceptability of flaws in metallic structures', British Standards Institution, London, 2000. 3. Harrison J D, Burdekin F M and Young J G: 'A proposed acceptance standard for weld defects based upon suitability for service', In: Procs. 2nd conference on the significance of defects in welds, London, May 1968. Abington, Cambs: The Welding Institute. Paper 1, 65-79. 4. British Standards Institution. 1980. PD 6493: 'Guidance on methods for assessing the acceptability of flaws in fusion welded structures'. 1st ed. London, British Standards Institution. 5. Burdekin F M and Dawes M G: 'Practical use of yielding and linear elastic fracture mechanics with particular reference to pressure vessels'. Conf. On Practical Applications of Fracture Mechanics to Pressure Vessel Technology, London, May 1971, Mechanical Engineering Publications. 6. Milne I, Ainsworth R A, Dowling A R and Stewart A T: 'Assessment of the integrity of structures containing defects'. CEGB report R/H/R6 - Rev.3. Barnwood, Glos, British Energy Generation Ltd, 1987. 7. BRITE EURAM Project: Structural Integrity Assessment Procedure for European Industry SINTAP, Procedure Document, British Steel (now Corus Group) Swinden Technology centre, Rotherham, UK, November 1999. 8. Wallin K: 'A simple theoretical Charpy V - K IC correlation for irradiation embrittlement'. Proc Conf ASME PVP 1989. (D L Mariott, T R Mager, W H Bamford Eds.), American Society for Mechanical Engineers, 1989. 9. Wallin K: 'Fracture toughness transition curve shape for ferritic structural steels'. Proc. Conf. Fracture of Engineering Materials and Structures, 61-79, Elsevier Applied Science, 1991. 10. King R: 'A review of fatigue crack growth rates in air and seawater', HSE Report OTH 511. Health and Safety Executive Books, London, 1998. 11. Morgan H G: 'Interaction of multiple fatigue cracks'. Proc. Conf. Fatigue of Welded Structures, TWI, Cambridge, UK, 1987. 12. Soboyejo W O: 'On the prediction of the fatigue propagation of semi-elliptical defects', ASTM STP 1122, Advances in Fatigue life prediction techniques, American Society of Testing and Materials, 1997. 13. Webster G A and Ainsworth R A: 'High temperature component life assessment'. Chapman and Hall, London, 1994. 14. PD6539:1994: 'Guide on methods for the assessment of the influence of crack growth on the significance of defects in components operating at high temperatures'. British Standards Institution, London,1994. 15. Plane C A, Cowling M J, Nwegbu V K and Burdekin F M: 'The determination of safety factors for defect assessment using reliability analysis methods', Third International Symposium on Integrity of OffshoreStructures, September 1987.
16. Burdekin F M, Hamour W, Pisarski H G and Muhammed A: 'Derivation of partial safety factors for BS 7910'. Proc. Conf. IMechE seminar: 'Flaw assessment in pressure equipment and weld structures - PD6493 toBS 7910'. IMechE Publications, London, UK, 2000. 17. Fu B F and Andrews R M: 'Assessment of general corrosion in pipes and pipelines'. Proc. Conf. IMechE seminar: 'Flaw assessment in pressure equipment and weld structures - PD6493 to BS 7910'. IMechEPublications, London, UK, 2000. 18. High-Temperature Defect Assessment - HIDA. Final report will be available in due course: enquiries to Dr I A Shibli, European Technology Development Ltd, 2 Warwick Gardens, Ashtead, (KT21 2HR), Surrey,UK. 19. American Petroleum Institute: API 579. Recommended practice for fitness-for-service, API, Washington DC, 2000.