Proceedings of the 2012 9th International Pipeline Conference IPC2012 September 24-28, 2012, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

IPC2012-90570

ACCOUNTING FOR NATURAL CRACK GROWTH SHAPES DURING ENVIRONMENTAL CRACKING

Do-Jun Shim, Frederick Brust, Gery Wilkowski Engineering Mechanics Corporation of Columbus Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A.

ABSTRACT Environmental cracking, such as stress-corrosion cracking (SCC), is a significant issue for a variety of industries, such as those dealing with power generation - nuclear, oil and gas production, and pipeline transmission, etc. SCC is particularly of concern in that catastrophic failures can occur even at low applied stress levels (e.g., residual stress produced by welding). Thus, it is critical to evaluate the behavior of SCC for structural integrity assessments. In this paper, three different crack growth methods (i.e., idealized crack growth analysis, crack growth analysis using finite element alternating method; FEAM, and the natural crack growth method) are summarized. These methods all utilize the stress intensity factor for crack growth evaluations. Thus, these methods can be used for assessment of environmental cracking that is based on stress intensity factor. Various examples are shown in this paper to demonstrate the applicability of these methods. Comparisons of results obtained from different methods are also provided in this paper. INTRODUCTION Environmental cracking, such as stress-corrosion cracking (SCC), is a significant issue for a variety of industries, such as those dealing with power generation - nuclear, oil and gas production, and pipeline transmission, etc. [1] SCC is particularly of concern in that catastrophic failures can occur even at low applied stress levels (e.g., residual stress produced by welding). Thus, it is critical to evaluate the behavior of SCC for structural integrity assessments. The occurrence of SCC depends on the simultaneous achievement of three requirements; a susceptible material, an environment that causes SCC for that material, and sufficient tensile stress to induce SCC. Once a SCC has been detected in a structure, fracture mechanics can be applied to predict the growth of the detected SCC. Application of linear elastic

fracture mechanics (LEFM) based stress intensity factor (K) as a crack-driving force for the propagation (da/dt, where a is crack size and t is time) of SCC is illustrated schematically in Figure 1. Hence, a typical crack growth law of SCC can be expressed as:

da p AK I dt

(1)

with A (a function of material and environmental properties) and p constants. Here, da/dt is the instantaneous crack growth rate. This equation must be integrated through the time history of SCC crack growth to predict the evolution of the crack shape as it grows to wall penetration and possibly rupture. Thus, it is essential to accurately calculate the stress intensity factor. Also, note that the environment conditions can affect the crack growth and shape, as shown in Eq. (1). There are numerous handbook solutions which contain stress intensity factor solutions for various geometries and loading conditions, for example see Refs. [2,3]. However, most of these solutions assume an idealized crack shape. For example, semi-ellipse is assumed for surface cracks and the crack front is idealized as a straight crack front parallel to the wall thickness direction for through-wall cracks. However, in most cases, the crack shape formed from SCC may not be close to an idealized shape. Recent studies conducted by the authors and others in the nuclear industry have shown that the idealized crack growth analyses of primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC) in nuclear piping can lead to overly conservative results compared to the results obtained from a natural crack growth analyses [4,5]. In this paper, three different crack growth methods (i.e., idealized crack growth analysis, crack growth analysis using finite element alternating method; FEAM [6,7,8], and the natural crack growth method [9,10]) were summarized. These

Corresponding author: djshim@emc-sq.com

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methods all utilize the stress intensity factor for crack growth evaluations. Thus, these methods can be used for assessment of environmental cracking that is based on stress intensity factor. Various examples are shown in this paper to demonstrate the applicability of these methods. Note that these examples are mainly related to nuclear applications. However, similar approaches can be applied to energy pipeline applications. Finally, comparisons of results obtained from different methods are also provided in this paper.

cracks, the crack front is idealized to be parallel to the radial direction. The crack growth is performed by using an averaged stress intensity factor along the crack front. Figure 2 illustrates the idealized circumferential crack growth procedure in surface and through-wall cracks in pipes.

Figure 2

Idealized crack growth for semi-elliptical surface crack and through-wall crack

Figure 1

Schematic illustration of a typical crack growth rate shown as a function of stress intensity factor

CRACK GROWTH ANALYSIS METHODS In order to calculate crack growth it is necessary to obtain the stress intensity factors to be used with the crack growth equation, e.g., see Eq. (1). This can be done by using compiled solutions from the literature for idealized crack shapes (for example, see Refs. [2,3]). This is quite convenient for simple geometries such as plate or pipe where the crack grows with a semi-ellipse shape. However, for complex geometries and loading conditions, such compilations do not exist. Therefore, alternative methods are needed. In this section, three different methods are described. First method is the traditional idealized crack growth method. Second method uses the finite element alternating method (FEAM) to calculate the stress intensity factor. The third method utilizes three-dimensional finite element calculations and can account for natural crack shapes. Idealized Crack Growth Analysis Large databases of stress intensity factor solutions have been compiled for plate and pipe (both surface crack and through-wall crack). These solutions can be used to calculate the stress intensity factor in residual stress fields, with additional loading crack face pressure, axial tension, and global bending also accounted for. For surface cracks, the crack shape is idealized as a semi-elliptical crack and only the stress intensity factor at the deepest and surface locations along the crack front are considered for crack growth while keeping the crack shape semi-elliptical as it grows. For through-wall

Crack Growth Analysis Using Finite Element Alternating Method The fundamental mathematical concept of the alternating method has been known for more than one hundred years. The method is quite general in that it can be applied to a wide range of elasticity problems. The elasticity solution for the union or intersection of two overlapping domains can be found if the solution to each separate problem is known using an iterative process. Since the method is applicable for any number of component geometries, one uses the solution for one infinite domain and one finite domain to obtain the solution to the doubly connected domain represented by the intersection of the two overlaid domains. With the finite element alternating method (FEAM), the solution for a crack in an infinite solid loaded via arbitrary crack face tractions serves as the infinite domain solution while the finite domain solution is represented by the finite element portion of the solution. This is the source of the name Schwartz-Neumann finite element alternating method. Most current applications of the alternating method are for solving crack problems, although other difficult problems could be considered as well. The current finite element alternating method (FEAM), summarized in Refs. [6,7,8] , is a rapid method for obtaining stress intensity factors for three-dimensional surface and embedded crack problems and for two-dimensional problems for complex geometrical shapes. The method has been used extensively in the aerospace industry with regard to aging aircraft considerations and in the nuclear industry regarding PWSCC crack growth. The method has recently been extended to handle growing cracks. The major advantage of the method is that a finite element mesh of the un-cracked geometry is all that is needed to obtain stress intensity factors, displacements, stresses, etc. The solution alternates between the infinite bodies closed form solution and the finite element solution for the finite body. Typically, 3 to 4 iterations are required to

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complete the analyses. The mixed mode stress intensity factors are obtained naturally from this procedure. The most important aspect of FEAM is that the same mesh can be used to obtain solutions for many different crack sizes, locations, and for multiple cracks. Because the finite element stiffness matrix only needs to be reduced once regardless of the crack size, crack location, crack orientation, crack number (mixed mode conditions can be handled as well), etc., the method is extremely efficient. Figure 3 shows a schematic illustration of the finite element alternating method.

Figure 4

Crack growth using stress intensity factors along the entire crack front

Figure 3

Illustration of finite element alternating method

Figure 5

Examples of natural crack developed by PipeFracCAE

fronts

Natural Crack Growth Analysis For cases where no compiled stress intensity factor solutions exist, one could calculate the stress intensity factor by developing a detailed finite element mesh for each crack. From this calculation, the stress intensity factor can be calculated along the entire crack front. Furthermore, these values can be used to perform the crack growth calculations along the entire crack front. The complexity of this method would be the requirement of generating a finite element mesh for a nonidealized crack shape. Hence, a computer code, PipeFracCAE, was developed by the authors to conduct these advanced finite element analyses (AFEA). This computer code, using the commercial code ABAQUS [11] as the solver, allows for planar arbitrary crack growth due to stress corrosion cracking in plate and pipe. The natural development of the crack front is controlled by the stress intensity factor of each crack tip location along the crack front. A semi-automated approach is used to incrementally control the growth of the arbitrary crack front, see Figure 4. The arrows in Figure 4 illustrate the crack growth directions used, which indicate that the crack can grow at different rates along the entire crack front. This can lead to rather complex crack shapes, especially for growth in complex stress fields as shown in Figure 5. This method should be considered to be the most accurate method for cases where the meshes can be easily developed in an automated fashion (for instance plate, pipe geometries). The details of the natural crack growth method can be found in Ref. [9].

EXAMPLES OF CRACK GROWTH ANALYSES In this section, examples of crack growth analyses are provided. These examples deal with crack growth due to PWSCC in nuclear power plants. However, as described earlier, these methods can be employed for any type of environmental cracking that is based on stress intensity factors. Circumferential Crack Growth In 2006, circumferential indications were located in the pressurizer nozzle dissimilar metal (DM) weld at one of the US nuclear power plant [4]. The indications located were relatively long circumferential defects in Alloy 82/182 dissimilar metal welds. In one case the flaw was sized at 43% of the circumference and 26% deep. Both idealized crack growth and natural crack growth analyses were conducted to predict the crack growth behavior. For the idealized crack growth analysis, the Anderson influence functions [3] for a semi-elliptical surface crack were used to calculate the stress intensity factor at the deepest and surface points. Figure 6 shows the weld residual stress (WRS) that was used in the crack growth analysis. Additional loading conditions, such as internal pressure, global bending, and axial tension were used in the calculations. In addition, the PWSCC crack growth rate of Alloy 182 at 650F was used in the crack growth calculations [12].
Note that the same WRS was applied to the model during the crack growth simulations. The redistribution of the WRS due to crack growth was not explicitly modeled in the present work.

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Axial weld residual stress, ksi

WRS

Normalized distance from ID surface

Figure 6

Axial weld residual stress (WRS) through the thickness

1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 a/t 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 Normalized distance around circumference Natural Semi-elliptical Initial flaw

Figure 7(a) shows an example comparison between the results obtained from the two methods. This figure shows the normalized crack size/shape of the initial semi-elliptical crack and the surface crack shape just prior to wall penetration (a/t=0.95, where a is the crack depth and t is the wall thichness). The shapes of the crack in the pipe are shown in Figure 7(b). As shown in this figures, the crack size/shape at wall penetration shows significant difference between the two results. Note that the surface crack grew around the entire pipe circumference for the natural crack growth analysis. This was due to the compressive weld residual stress [see Figure 6] which that generated negative K values along the crack front and thus did not allow the crack to grow through the pipe thickness. In addition, when this natural crack penetrated the wall thickness, it became a complex through-wall crack, i.e., through-wall crack superimposed on a 360 degree surface crack. On the other hand, for the idealized crack growth, this behavior was not captured since the crack shape was limited to a semi-elliptical shape. The crack growth history for these cracks is shown in Figure 8. In this case, the solid lines represent the crack depth and the dashed lines represent the ID half crack length. The semi-elliptical solutions using the Anderson influence functions are shown in pink, while the natural crack growth results are shown in blue. As illustrated, not only is the margin on critical crack size affected, but the time to leakage is also underestimated when the semi-elliptical assumption is used.
1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 9 8 ID half crack length, inch 7 6 5 0.5 4 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 1 2 3 4 Time, years 5 6 7 8 Relief Nozzle ID length = 16.2 inch 3 Depth - semi-ellipse Depth - natural Length - semi-ellipse Length - natural 2 1 0

(a)

Figure 8 Time to through-wall penetration for relief nozzle case Axial Crack Growth This example shows how the natural crack growth analysis method can be employed to predict the crack growth behavior of an axial PWSCC in dissimilar metal (DM) welds (Alloy 182), see Ref. [9] for details. A DM weld (consisting of SA 508, stainless steel TP 304, and Alloy 182) in a surge nozzle in a PWR plant was considered for this study. The outer diameter and the thickness (t) of the surge nozzle were 387.2 mm and 41.1 mm, respectively. The normal operating conditions (internal pressure, axial tension, and global bending) were used for the crack growth calculations. In addition, the hoop stress

Semi-elliptical (b) Figure 7

Natural

Crack shape prior to leakage assuming semi-elliptical crack growth and natural crack growth for relief nozzle geometry

a/t

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obtained from the weld residual stress simulation was used in the crack growth calculations. Figure 9 shows a typical axial crack FE mesh used for the natural crack growth analyses. As shown in this figure, the initial semi-circular axial crack (ai/t=0.2) was located in the center of the susceptible material, i.e., Alloy 182 material which included the buttering and the main weld. For axial crack growth, the hoop WRS obtained from the WRS model was mapped over to the elastic FE model as shown in Figure 10. Note that for this comparison, symmetry boundary condition was applied to the crack face of the fracture model. Using the normal operating conditions and the WRS, axial crack growth was simulated using the elastic FE model. Note that the crack growth was contained within the susceptible material. The crack growth calculation results are shown in Figure 11. This figure shows the natural crack shape and the normalized time to leakage. Crack Growth in Complex Geometry This example demonstrates how the FEAM can be used to conduct crack growth analysis for cracks in complex geometries. For such geometries there is no compilation of stress intensity factor solutions. Although the natural crack growth method can be used, the generation of FE meshes for complex geometries that include cracks is not a simple task. Thus, the use of FEAM (where there is no need to mesh the crack) is more suitable. In PWR pressure vessels, the reactor pressure vessel head contains numerous penetrations so that control-rod-drive mechanism (CRDM) nozzles can be inserted to allow control rods to move up and down as needed for reactor operation. As shown in Figure 12, the nozzle consists of an Alloy 600 pipe (or tube) that goes through the head and has a partial penetration weld to the vessel at the ID surface of the head. This weld is referred to as the J-weld and the weld material was Alloy 82/182. The nozzle tube typically has a 101.6-mm outside diameter with a wall thickness of 15.875 mm.

(MPa)

Figure 10 Comparison of hoop stress from the original WRS model and hoop stress mapped to the fracture model
0.0 0.217 0.434 0.565 0.652 0.739 0.804 0.860 0.904 0.935 0.961 1.0

Normalized time to leakage

Figure 11 Axial crack growth results for surge nozzle

SA508

AL182

TP316

Figure 9

Typical axial crack FE mesh generated from PipeFracCAE

Figure 12 Illustration of CRDM head segment with a center hole and downhill nozzle

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In this evaluation, the growth of axial cracks through the weld and tube to the triple point (which constitutes a leak) was analyzed. The nozzles in a head typically range from the 0degree center hole (see Figure 12) to a maximum angle of near 60-degree, depending on the PWR manufacturer. The present example focuses on the crack growth behavior of a mid range nozzle, or the 25-degree case. The hoop direction weld residual stresses (WRS) will drive an axial crack through the J-welds. By hoop we refer to the tube coordinates in the usual sense. The hoop WRS are shown in Figure 13 where the uphill and downhill stresses are shown. Details of the weld residual stresses for the uphill and downhill J-welds are shown in Figure 14. See Ref. [8] for more details. Figure 15 Crack growth procedures in CRDM nozzles Step 1. Perform FEAM analysis with an initial crack (depth, a = 2 mm, width, c = 4 mm) as seen at the bottom of the weld in Figure 15 in blue. Note that with the FEAM method, the crack represents the intersection of the ellipse with the mesh, and is represented by the shaded region. Step 2. Extract the stress intensity factors. FEAM obtains the full stress field and calculates the mixed mode values of K (KI, KII, and KIII). For this case, Mode I dominated so that only the Mode I component was used for the PWSCC growth. Step 3. Only the growth at the deepest point and one at the surface points are used for the next crack size. The crack center was kept identical with the initial location, i.e., it was not moved. For some cracks, the ellipse was rotated after a certain amount of growth if the depth became greater than the width. Step 4. Go to Step 1 and determine new K values for new crack size. Repeat until crack breaks through the weld. The crack shape profiles during the PWSCC growth are illustrated in Figure 16. The actual time in years for the crack to reach the triple point (TP) is used to normalize the results. For instance, if the time it took for the crack to grow to the triple point (light blue line with diamonds in Figure 16) shows the crack shape when it reaches the TP (or leak time) was 20 years, then all of the other times were normalized by this value. Hence, it took 43% of the time to leakage for the crack to grow from the initial shape to the 0.43 TP growth. This shows that the cracks grow very slowly at first and then pick up speed as they get deeper into the weld. This makes sense since the weld residual stresses are low near the bottom of the weld and get larger as it grows to nearer to the triple point. Figure 17 shows the PWSCC growth shapes for the downhill nozzle. Again, it is seen that the crack grows slowly at first and then picks up speed as it approaches the TP leak point.

Figure 13 Hoop weld residual stresses in J-welds

(a) Uphill (b) Downhill Figure 14 Hoop WRS in uphill and downhill weld (same contour scale as in Figure 13) For the crack growth analysis, the loads consist of the weld residual stress field (the full field including all six stress components) and pressure loading (including crack face pressure). The analyses were performed by using the following procedure (see Figure 15).

This is not the actual time for leak.

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geometries and loading conditions, the FEAM is more suitable, where only the mesh of the uncracked structure is needed. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The example cases shown in this paper were performed as part of work supported by the U.S. Nuclear Regulator Commission and EDF. Authors would like to thank Drs. Sureshkumar Kalyanam, Tao Zhang, and Edward Punch at Emc2 for their support. REFERENCES 1 Stress-Corrosion Cracking Materials Performance and Evaluation, Russell H. Jones, Editor, The Materials Information Society, ASM International, 1992. Fitness-for-Service, API Recommend Practice 579, First Edition, 2000, American Petroleum Institute. Anderson, T.L., Thornwald, G., Revelle, D.A., and Lanaud, C., Stress Intensity Solutions for Surface Cracks and Buried Cracks in Cylinders, Spheres, and Flat Plates, Structural Reliability Technology final report to The Materials Property Council, Inc., March 14, 2000. Materials Reliability Program: Advanced FEA Evaluation of Growth of Postulated Circumferential PWSCC Flaws in Pressurizer Nozzle Dissimilar Metal Welds (MRP-216, Rev. 1) EPRI, Palo Alto, CA: 2007. 1015383. MRP-216, Rev. 1. Rudland, D.L., Shim, D.-J., Zhang, T., and Wilkowski, G., Implications of Wolf Creek Indications Final Report, Program final report to the NRC, August 2007. ADAMS ML072470394 Nishioka, T. And Atluri, S. N., Analytical Solutions for Embedded Elliptical Cracks, and Finite Element Alternating Method for Elliptical Surface Cracks, Subjected to Arbitrary Loadings, Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 247-268, 1983. Stonesifer, R. B., Brust, F. W., and Leis, B. N., MixedMode Stress Intensity Factors for Interacting SemiElliptical Surface Cracks in a Plate, Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 357-380, 1993. Brust, F. W., Zhang, T., Shim, D. J., Wilkowski, G. M., and Rudland, D., Modeling Crack Growth in Weld Residual Stress Fields using the Finite Element Alternating Method, Proceedings of the ASME Pressure Vessel and Piping Conference, paper PVP2011-57935, July 17-21, 2011, Baltimore, MD. Shim, D.-J., Kalyanam, S., Punch, E., Zhang, T., Brust, F., Wilkowski, Goodfellow, A., and Smith, M., Advanced Finite Element Analysis (AFEA) Evaluation for Circumferential and Axial PWSCC Defects, PVP201025162, Proceedings of the 2010 ASME Pressure Vessels & Piping Division / K-PVP Conference, July 18-22, 2010, Bellevue, Washington, USA.

Figure 16 Crack growth progression in uphill nozzle

2 3

6 Figure 17 Crack growth progression in downhill nozzle CONCLUDING REMARKS In this paper, three different crack growth methods (i.e., idealized crack growth analysis, crack growth analysis using FEAM, and the natural crack growth method) were summarized. These methods all utilize the stress intensity factor for crack growth evaluations. Thus, these methods can be used for assessment of environmental cracking that is based on stress intensity factor. The idealized crack growth method is quite convenient for simple geometries such as plate or pipe where the crack grows with a semi-ellipse shape. However, as demonstrated in the example problem shown in this paper, the idealized crack shape assumption may provide results that are too conservative. The natural crack growth is very powerful in that it can capture the natural crack growth behavior. Moreover, it can be applied to cases where there is no compilation of stress intensity factor solutions. However, since this method requires mesh generation each time the crack is grown, it may require intensive effort to generate the FE meshes. Hence, for complex

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10 Rudland, D., Shim, D.-J., and Csontos, A., Natural Flaw Shape Development Due to Stress Corrosion Cracking, PVP2008-61205, Proceedings of the ASME-PVP 2008: ASME 2008 Pressure Vessels & Piping Division Conference, July 27-31, 2008, Chicago, Illinois, USA 11 ABAQUS Version 6.11-1. Users manual. SIMULIA, Dassault Systemes, 2011. 12 Materials Reliability Program (MRP) Crack Growth Rates for Evaluating Primary Water Stress Corrosion Cracking (PWSCC) of Alloy 82, 182, and 132 Welds, MRP-115, EPRI, Palo Alto, CA: 2004. 1006696.

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