Research on Safety Assessment Method for Pressure Pipe With Incomplete Welding Defects Under Complicated Loadings

Since most pressure pipe materials have good toughness, the failure mode of pipe is usually the plastic failure controlled by limit load. The incomplete welding defect is very common in the pipe, and its existence will reduce the load-carrying capacity of pipes. The pipe with incomplete welding defects can be continued using only after passing the appropriate safety assessment, so the research on safety assessment procedure for pressure pipe with incomplete welding defects under combined bending, torsion and internal pressure loadings has a great theoretical and practical engineering value. By using theoretical analyzing method of plastic limit load, the plastic limit load of pressure pipe with different defect size or pipe diameter ratio are calculated in this paper, then safety assessment curved surface and its express equation are obtained by fitting calculation data. Finally a safety assessment procedure is developed for pressure pipes under combined bending, torsion and internal pressure loadings according to the curved surface.