Residual Stress Profiles of Pipe Girth Weld Using a Stress Decomposition Method

The application of procedures such as R6 or BS7910 for the structural assessment of defects in pressurised components containing residual stresses requires knowledge of the through-wall residual stress profile. Currently there is much interest in improving the residual stress profiles that are provided in the procedures. In this paper we present an improved analysis of residual stresses of the pipe girth welds by applying the developed heuristic method to one set of extended residual stress measurement data. The through-thickness residual stress is decomposed into three stress components: membrane, bending and self-equilibrating. The heuristic method was applied to the three components separately, so that the residual stress profile was a combination of the three stress components. This form provides not only a clear physical basis for the residual stress profile, but is also convenient for defect assessment where only the membrane and bending stress components are important.