Fatigue Life Assessment for Variable Strain in a Mixing Tee by Use of Effective Strain Range

Author(s):  
Koji Miyoshi ◽  
Masayuki Kamaya

Abstract Mixing flow causes fluctuations in fluid temperature near a pipe wall and may result in fatigue crack initiation. Movement of the hot spot, at which the pipe inner surface was heated by hot flow from the branch pipe, causes thermal stress fluctuations. In this study, the effect of the loading sequence on thermal fatigue in a mixing tee was investigated. In addition, the prediction method of the fatigue life for the variable thermal strain in the mixing tee was discussed. The time histories of the strain around the hot spot were estimated by finite element analysis for which the temperature condition was determined by wall temperature measured in a mock-up test. The accumulated fatigue damage around the hot spot obtained by Miner's rule was less than 1.0. Since the strain around the hot spot had waveforms with periodic overload, the loading sequence with periodic overload caused reduction of the fatigue life around the hot spot. Crack growth tests showed that a single overload decreased crack opening strain and increased the effective strain range. The increment of the effective strain range accelerated the crack growth rate after the overload. The accumulated fatigue damage for the strain in the mixing tee was calculated using Miner's rule and the strain ranges which added the maximum increment of the effective strain range. The accumulated fatigue damage was larger than 1.0 under most conditions. The proposed procedure is suitable to predict the conservative fatigue life in a mixing tee.

Author(s):  
Koji Miyoshi ◽  
Masayuki Kamaya

Abstract Mixing flow causes fluid temperature fluctuations near the pipe walls and may result in fatigue crack initiation. The authors have previously reported the loading sequence effect on thermal fatigue in a mixing tee. The fatigue damage around the hot spot, which was heated by the hot jet flow from the branch pipe, obtained by Miner’s rule was less than 1.0. Since the strain around the hot spot had waveforms with periodic overload, the loading sequence with periodic overload caused reduction of the fatigue life around the hot spot. In this study, the effect of a single overload on the fatigue crack growth rate was investigated in order to clarify the reduction of the fatigue life at the mixing tee due to strain with periodic overload. In addition, the prediction method of the fatigue life for the variable thermal strain at the mixing tee was discussed. It was shown the crack growth rate increased after an overload for both cases of tensile and compressive overloads. The effective strain amplitude increased after the application of a single overload. The fatigue life curve was modified by considering the increment of the effective strain range. The fatigue damage recalculated using the modified fatigue life curve was larger than 1.0 except in a few cases. The fatigue life could be assessed conservatively for variable strain at the mixing tee using the developed fatigue curve and Miner’s rule.


Author(s):  
Koji Miyoshi ◽  
Masayuki Kamaya

Abstract Mixing flow causes fluctuations in fluid temperature near the pipe wall and may result in fatigue crack initiation. In a previous study, the authors reported the characteristics of the thermal stress to cause thermal fatigue at a mixing tee. A large stress fluctuation was caused by movement of the hot spot, at which the pipe wall was heated by hot flow from the branch pipe. According to a general procedure, fatigue damage is calculated by the linear damage accumulation rule. However, it has been reported that Miner’s rule does not always predict the fatigue life conservatively for variable stress amplitude. In this study, we investigated the change in fatigue life due to variable strain around the hot spot. The time histories of the strain around the hot spot were estimated by finite element analysis (FEA) for which the temperature condition was determined by wall temperature measured in a mock-up test. Strain-controlled fatigue tests were conducted using smooth cylindrical specimens made of stainless steel. The fatigue damage at failure of the specimen was calculated using Miner’s rule. The calculated fatigue damage around the hot spot became less than unity and the minimum value was 0.18. Therefore, Miner’s rule predicted non-conservative fatigue life. In addition, the calculated fatigue damage inside the hot spot was larger than those outside the hot spot and at the position of maximum stress fluctuation. Fatigue tests using strain with periodic overload were also conducted in order to investigate the effect of the loading history on fatigue life. It was shown that the strain with periodic overload reduced the fatigue life. The calculated fatigue damage for the strain at the maximum position of stress fluctuation range seemed to be smaller than those at other positions. This implies that the fatigue life can be estimated conservatively from the viewpoint of the loading sequence effect by calculating the fatigue damage using Miner’s rule for the strain at the maximum position of stress fluctuation range.


2004 ◽  
Vol 261-263 ◽  
pp. 1313-1318 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Kobayashi ◽  
O. Muragishi ◽  
K. Nihei

A fatigue detecting sensor that enables easy and precise estimation of fatigue damage of machines and structures was developed, based on the crack growth characteristics of metal. The sensor is composed of a metal foil with a single edge notch and a base metal foil. The two metal foils are bonded at the both far ends. The sensor is attached with an adhesive to the surface of structural member which is subjected to cyclic loads. The fatigue damage of the member is detected as the fatigue crack initiation from the notch tip of the sensor. The fatigue crack growth rate is independent of the crack length. The metal foil of the sensor is given pre-tension, so the sensor has stable crack growth characteristics independent of the average strain. The crack growth length is measured in a certain period after the installation. The length is converted to the fatigue damage of the member during the sampling period of sensor installation. Since no measuring instrument and signal wiring is necessary, the diagnosis procedure becomes easy and the cost for structural health monitoring could be reduced. With such small size of the sensor as conventional strain gages, the pin-pointed application of the sensor to the hot spot of structural stress concentration, where is important for the fatigue strength estimation of welded structures, is possible. Therefore, precise fatigue remaining life assessment could be carried out. Sensors with several strain ranges were developed, so application to vast strain range is possible. Even such a small strain range as 1/10000 is able to be detected. The sensors have been applied to various products like steel bridges, rolling stocks, ships, etc.


Author(s):  
Joseph Batten ◽  
Chris Currie ◽  
Jonathan Mann ◽  
Andrew Morley

Abstract Even with improvements to remove excessive conservatisms, current fatigue assessment approaches can result in high Cumulative Usage Factors (CUFs) for some analyses. In order to improve plant availability from these assessments and mitigate future changes to design codes, an improvement in understanding in this area is desirable. Hence the proposal for a Life Assessment Methodology (LAM) was created. The LAM is a concept for an approach based on modelling each stage of fatigue life to predict total fatigue life, as a means of minimising conservatism in an assessment, where necessary. It should also be capable of incorporating statistical methods to assign reliability figures to calculated plant lives. This paper describes the proposed definition of the LAM and how a proof of concept version of the LAM was developed to assess the Bettis Bechtel Stepped Pipe (BBSP) test. The results were presented with two seeded cases (fixed inputs) and a range of lives corresponding to associated Target Reliabilities (TRs). The Best Estimate (BE) and TR associated lives produced were based on using the latest methods available for calculating Fatigue Initiation (FI) and Fatigue Crack Growth (FCG), whereas the seeded Effective Strain Range (ESR) comparison case used current deterministic assessment methods. The results for the case study concluded that there is a benefit to pursuing the development of the LAM when compared to traditional assessment methods. It highlighted and quantified the conservatism present in traditional assessment methods for these cases as well as the need to understand the required TR for a specific component as this can have a large effect on the predicted life. With further refinements to the method, a more realistic and robust output of the total fatigue life distribution (for specific cases) would be obtained, which in turn would allow us to better quantify the conservatism associated with a TR.


Author(s):  
Dimitrios G. Pavlou

Offshore structures are subjected to irregular loading spectra due to their exposure to waves and wind. The environmental loads cause variable amplitude stress histories on critical spots of the structures. The existing engineering methodology (adopted by most of the national standards) to estimate the accumulated fatigue damage is based on Miner’s rule for crack initiation. Paris rule and its modifications are used for crack propagation prediction. However, Miner’s rule is a linear model and does not take into account the sequence effect of loading blocks with different stress amplitude. On the other hand, the widely used Paris rule does not take into account the load interaction effects (e.g. overload-induced crack growth retardations). The prediction of the crack growth rate and the crack growth direction of mixed mode cracks is an important issue as well. Aim of the present paper is the analysis of the weaknesses of the engineering tools for fatigue analysis, and the demonstration of the advantages of non-linear damage functions and crack propagation models. A review of models for fatigue crack initiation and growth (for mode I or mixed mode loading) developed by the author is presented. Representative results are discussed and commented.


Author(s):  
Asokendu Samanta ◽  
P. Kurinjivelan

Fatigue is a phenomenon, which needs to be considered in the present day’s vessel design. The welded joints are particularly affected by the fatigue damage due to high stress concentrations caused by the metallurgical discontinuities present in the weld. For oil tankers and bulk carriers adequate guidelines for the fatigue strength assessment have been established by the classification societies. But for navy vessel, like offshore patrol vessel, the design guidelines for the fatigue strength analysis are not widely available. In the present paper, an attempt has been made to calculate the fatigue life of offshore patrol vessel (OPV). In general five stages of work is involved in calculating fatigue life of any ship structure. These are, load calculation, nominal and hot spot stress computation, long-term stress distribution, selection of S-N curve and the fatigue damage calculation. In the present study, the wave loads are obtained by the rule based estimation. The finite element analysis with the submodeling approach has been used to get the hot spot stress at critical locations. The two-parameter Weibull curve has been used to get the long-term distribution of stress. And at the end, the fatigue damage and the fatigue life have been computed using the Palmgren-Miner linear cumulative damage theory at the critical locations of the vessel.


Author(s):  
Bryan Nelson ◽  
Yann Quéméner ◽  
Tsung-Yueh Lin ◽  
Hsin-Haou Huang ◽  
Chi-Yu Chien

This study evaluated, by time-domain simulations, the fatigue life of the jacket support structure of a 3.6 MW wind turbine operating in Fuhai Offshore Wind Farm. The long-term statistical environment was based on a preliminary site survey that served as the basis for a convergence study for an accurate fatigue life evaluation. The wave loads were determined by the Morison equation, executed via the in-house HydroCRest code, and the wind loads on the wind turbine rotor were calculated by an unsteady BEM method. A Finite Element model of the wind turbine was built using Beam elements. However, to reduce the time of computation, the hot spot stress evaluation combined FE-derived Closed-Form expressions of the nominal stresses at the tubular joints and stress concentration factors. Finally, the fatigue damage was assessed using the Rainflow Counting scheme and appropriate SN curves. Based on a preliminary sensitivity study of the fatigue damage prediction, an optimal load setting of 60-min short-term environmental conditions with one-second time steps was selected. After analysis, a sufficient fatigue strength was identified, but further calculations involving more extensive long-term data measurements are required in order to confirm these results. Finally, this study highlighted the sensitivity of the fatigue life to the degree of fluctuation (standard deviation) of the wind loads, as opposed to the mean wind loads, as well as the importance of appropriately orienting the jacket foundations according to prevailing wind and wave conditions.


2006 ◽  
Vol 514-516 ◽  
pp. 804-809
Author(s):  
S. Gao ◽  
Ewald Werner

The forging die material, a high strength steel designated W513 is considered in this paper. A fatigue damage model, based on thermodynamics and continuum damage mechanics, is constructed in which both the previous damage and the loading sequence are considered. The unknown material parameters in the model are identified from low cycle fatigue tests. Damage evolution under multi-level fatigue loading is investigated. The results show that the fatigue life is closely related to the loading sequence. The fatigue life of the materials with low fatigue loading first followed by high fatigue loading is longer than that for the reversed loading sequence.


1992 ◽  
Vol 114 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Ertas ◽  
G. Mustafa ◽  
O. Cuvalci

It is well known that the upper ball joint in a marine riser, in deep drilling, can cause fatigue damage in the drill pipe passing through it. A study of fracture mechanics and S–N curve approaches has been undertaken to determine the dynamic fatigue damage in the drill pipe. Miner’s rule is utilized in both methods to determine the total damage. The results of both methods are compared.


Author(s):  
Arvind Keprate ◽  
R. M. Chandima Ratnayake

A typical procedure for a remnant fatigue life (RFL) assessment is stated in the BS-7910 standard. The aforementioned standard provides two different methodologies for estimating RFL; these are: the S-N curve approach and the crack growth laws (i.e. using Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) principles) approach. Due to its higher accuracy, the latter approach is more commonly used for RFL assessment in the offshore industry. Nevertheless, accurate prediction of RFL using the deterministic LEFM approach (stated in BS-7910) is a challenging task, as RFL prediction is afflicted with a high number of uncertainties. Furthermore, BS-7910 does not provide any recommendation in regard to handling the uncertainty in the deterministic RFL assessment process. The most common way of dealing with the aforementioned uncertainty is to employ Probabilistic Crack Growth (PCG) models for estimating the RFL. This manuscript explains the procedure for addressing the uncertainty in the RFL assessment of process piping with the help of a numerical example. The numerically obtained RFL estimate is used to demonstrate a calculation of inspection interval.


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