1 Copyright 2012 by ASME

CIRCUMFERENTIAL COMPRESSION MATERIAL CHARACTERIZATION FOR PIPE

COLLAPSE LOAD PREDICTION


Garret Meijer
Noetic Engineering 2008 Inc.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Trent Kaiser
Noetic Engineering 2008 Inc.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada


ABSTRACT
Pipe collapse limits are controlled by circumferential
compressive material response. In addition to yield strength and
elastic modulus, elastic-plastic transition and plastic collapse
performance of thick-wall pipes also depends on the character
of yielding and post-yield hardening. Accurate characterization
of all these properties is necessary to obtain a reliable estimate
of collapse load. Common standardized material test methods
provide convenient means to acquire basic mechanical
properties (i.e., yield strength, elastic modulus and elongation)
under laboratory conditions (i.e., room temperature and
relatively rapid loading). However, these test methods include
specimen preparation, such as pipe-wall straightening, and rapid
strain rates that are known to impact material response,
particularly in the yield transition and post-yield regimes that
are important to elastic-plastic collapse. Therefore, these
common laboratory techniques are useful for providing an index
of material properties, but their simplified methodologies can
have a significant impact on the accuracy of collapse
performance estimates.
This paper describes a circumferential compressive
material testing technique, developed to complement strain-
based design in the energy industry, used to demonstrate
differences in pipe material response measured from
circumferential compressive tests and standard axial tensile
tests. This technique avoids straightening the pipe wall by
plastic deformation that leads to artificial rounding of the
measured stress-strain yield behavior. Strain controlled loading
is used to reveal yield behaviors that may be impacted by
changing strain rates under stroke and load control testing.
Accurate circumferential compressive material
characterization improves the identification of yield and
anisotropic behaviors (tension-compression and axial-
circumferential) that arise from material processing, pipe
manufacturing and subsequent loading. The impact of the
material response is illustrated in a numerical pipe collapse
simulation that directly incorporates the measured stress-strain
behavior. The impact of yield strength, stress-strain yield shape
and post-yield hardening are explored. Using the measured
stress-strain behavior and collapse simulation results, the
sensitivity of collapse load predictions to material behavior is
discussed and the requirement for accurate circumferential
compressive and in-situ material characterization is
demonstrated.
INTRODUCTION
It is important to properly characterize material behavior
for pipe collapse prediction. Collapse resistance is dependent
on material properties including the yield strength, post-yield
hardening and stress-strain curve shape and these must be
characterized in the material direction that controls collapse
circumferential compression. Use of results from axial tensile
tests can lead to error in collapse load prediction because pipe
fabrication techniques can lead to anisotropic material behavior.
Not only may the axial and circumferential responses be
different, but the circumferential tension and circumferential
compression behaviors may also be different.
Circumferential compression testing is difficult because of
geometry constraints on the specimen design. Use of a full wall
specimen requires flattening of the pipe wall, introducing
plastic deformation that modifies the measured stress-strain
response. This paper describes a method of circumferential
compression testing using small straight specimens cut from the
curved pipe wall. This method has limitations in specimen
geometry and position within the pipe wall, but provides an
accurate measurement of the pipe material under
circumferential compression.
The importance of using the circumferential compressive
properties is demonstrated by revealing the sensitivity of
collapse analyses to yield strength, post-yield hardening and
rounded stress-stain curves.
Proceedings of the 2012 9th International Pipeline Conference
IPC2012
September 24-28, 2012, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
IPC2012-90336
2 Copyright 2012 by ASME
BACKGROUND
Investigations into pipe collapse and reviews of collapse
equations used in common pipeline and wellbore casing design
standards continue to demonstrate the important impact of pipe
geometry, imperfections, load conditions and material
properties on pipe collapse [1,2,3,4]. External pressure loading,
which leads to collapse, may be uniform such as in sub-sea
pipelines or non-uniform as in buried pipe lines. Imperfections,
which lead to gradients in pipe wall stiffness and non-symmetric
deformation under external pressure, can be expected in the
pipe wall. Variation in pipe geometry is usually described by
ovality and eccentricity. Ovality is a measure of out-of round of
the pipe cross-section and eccentricity describes variation in
pipe wall thickness. Wall thickness variation is particularly
common in seamless pipe.
Strain-based design and prediction of elastic-plastic
collapse require knowledge of post-yield stress-strain behavior
in addition to the yield strength. In the context used here, post-
yield refers to the strain region beyond the linear material
response. Elastic-plastic collapse behavior is particularly
sensitive to the strain hardening (quantified by the tangent
modulus) following initial yielding of the pipe wall, and
accurate measurement of the initial yield point, or proportional
limit, and subsequent stress-strain response is essential to
accurate collapse prediction.
Material properties may be anisotropic due to the pipe
fabrication procedures. UOE and JCO pipe fabrication methods
involve circumferential bending and expansion processes that
plastically deform the pipe wall and modify the material
behavior. Anisotropy can also result from plastic deformation
during cold bending and straightening processes. Heat
treatment, such as quench and tempering, of some pipe grades
will reduce the impact of cold working, but most pipeline
grades are not thermally treated. Most line pipe, however, is
heated subsequent to production, such as during the application
of coatings, and the impacts of the cold working on material
pipe material behavior are reduced.
Cold working steel typically leads to changes in yield
strength, hardening and shape of the stress strain curve. The
character of the change in behavior is dependent on the
directions (tension or compression) of the initial and subsequent
loads. Reloading in the initial load direction typically leads to a
high yield strength and sharp yield transition in the stress-strain
curve than in the virgin material. Load reversal, on the other
hand, is characterized by a reduction in yield strength (the
Bauschinger effect) and a rounded stress strain curve [5,6]. Pipe
expansion during fabrication followed by application of
external pressure collapse load is a load reversal and both the
reduced yield strength and rounded stress-strain behavior have a
detrimental impact on collapse resistance.
Material testing is frequently specified to determine
material properties to support design methods and a number of
standard test methods have been developed to ensure some
measure of consistency between material evaluations performed
in different locations and on different equipment. The tensile
test, such as described in ASTM E-8 [7], is an accepted method
of measuring the material properties used in allowable stress
design, but these testing methods have not been designed to
provide material response data that satisfies the requirements of
strain-based design and collapse prediction methods.
Tensile testing is performed by applying loads under one of
load-, stroke-, or strain-based control. The setup for load and
stroke controlled testing is simpler than performing strain-
controlled loading because there is not the requirement of
feedback from an external strain measuring device
(e.g., extensometer or strain gauge). In load-controlled mode,
the stress is typically increased at a constant rate and therefore
the lower and upper yield points characteristic of quenched and
tempered materials cannot be distinguished. In stroke-control
mode the specimen ends typically separate at a constant rate,
but neither the strain-rate nor the stress-rate within the specimen
gauge section are constant. Characterization of yield under
stroke-control is also complicated by strain redistribution from
the reinforced specimen ends to the gauge section when the
gauge section yields. Loading under strain-control best
minimizes the impacts of test dynamics and specimen strain
redistribution and allows accurate characterization of a yield
peak, stress plateau and strain hardening.
Standard test methods, such as ASTM E8, allow for
specimen flattening by permanently bending for circumferential
tension tests. The plastic deformation associated with
straightening leads to uneven yielding of the specimen cross-
section during tensile testing and the stress-strain curve is
artificially rounded.
The preferred method of characterizing post-yield material
behavior for collapse prediction is by compressive strain-
control loading at a constant strain rate of a straight, but not
straightened, specimen cut in the circumferential direction of
the pipe wall. Pipe geometry limits the size and location from
which the circumferential specimen can be removed from the
pipe wall and the resulting small dimensions of a straight
specimen increase testing difficulty, but circumferential
compression testing will reveal anisotropic behavior in the pipe
material. Such testing has been reported in the literature
[8,9,10], but has not become common for collapse analyses.
CIRCUMFERENTIAL COMPRESSION MATERIAL
CHARACTERIZATION
A specimen geometry and test method was developed to
measure the pipe-wall circumferential compressive stress-strain
material behavior that controls pipe collapse. The specimen has
high buckling resistance and the method of specimen gripping
minimizes bending due to misalignment.
The specimen size is constrained by the curvature and
thickness of the pipe wall. The specimen was initially designed
for assessing the performance of oilfield casing with 178 mm to
244 mm diameter and less than 12.7 mm wall thickness. The
small diameter and wall thickness limited specimens to a gauge
length of 11.5 mm and a gauge diameter of 6.4 mm. The length
is short to maintain buckling resistance under plastic
3 Copyright 2012 by ASME
compressive load. Barreling distortion of such a short specimen
is a concern, but measurements from performed tests have
indicated that barreling has little impact on strain
measurements. Figure 1 shows the positions of the axial tension
and circumferential specimen before extraction from a section
of the pipe wall.


Figure 1. Relative positions of axial tensile (red) and
circumferential compression (blue) specimens.
The specimen does not incorporate the pipe wall thickness.
This is a constraint of the pipe wall. Furthermore, the round
specimen geometry does not equally represent all locations
through the wall thickness. Material at the center of the round
specimen comprises a much larger percentage of the cross-
section. This is a concern when the material behavior through
the pipe wall is expected to vary. The UOE and JCO forming
operations involve plastically bending the pipe wall and can be
expected to lead to different behaviors in the inside and outside
of the pipe wall when the wall is subject to tensile or
compressive testing [9]. For this reason, it is important that the
circumferential compression specimens have as large of a cross-
section as possible or small specimens are produced from
different radial positions in the pipe wall.
The test apparatus includes specially design floating grips
to reduce misalignment and reduce specimen flexure. Figure 2
shows a specimen mounted in the grips.

Figure 2. Circumferential compression specimen in floating
grips.
The test method includes axial strain gauges installed
around the circumference of the specimen. Typically four strain
gauges are equally spaced around the specimen circumference,
but on smaller specimens, such as the one shown in Figure 2,
three gauges have been used. Specimen load is applied by strain
control at a constant gauge-section strain rate using feedback
from the strain gauges. The strain gauges are also used to
monitor specimen flexure to assess the impact of bending on the
measured stress-strain curve. Specimen bending leads to non-
uniform yield which results in measurement of an
unintentionally rounded curve. The shape of the stress-strain
curve has a large impact on collapse load so the shape, sharp or
rounded yield, needs to be properly characterized for accurate
collapse predictions.
Figure 3 shows a comparison of axial tensile and
circumferential compressive stress-strain curves measured from
single circumferential and axial location on a 340 mm
101.2 kg/m API 5CT K55 seamless casing sample. This product
is provided as-rolled and may be cold straightened.
Straightening cold works the pipe and can introduce material
response variations around the pipe circumference. The
circumferential compressive stress-strain response has a knee
and slight plateau, but the axial tension response is rounded.
The axial tension behavior is consistent with working such as
cold straightening.
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
0.0% 0.3% 0.5% 0.8% 1.0%
Stress
(MPa)
Strain (%)
Axial Tension
Circ. Comp.

Figure 3. Comparison of 340 mm 101.2 kg/m K55 seamless
casing axial tension and circumferential compression
stress-strain curves.
The stress-strain results for the casing material, shown in Figure
3, are opposite the trend expected in pipe produced by UOE
and JCO methods, but the results do demonstrate possible
anisotropy in tubular products. The UOE and JCO fabrication
methods include cold working the pipe wall in the
circumferential direction leading to rounding of the measured
circumferential compressive stress-strain curve.
4 Copyright 2012 by ASME
COLLAPSE SIMULATION
Collapse simulation was done using ADINA finite element
software on a three-dimensional model of an initially oval pipe.
External pressure load was applied to the model to determine
the critical pressure and change in geometry. The focus of this
investigation is to demonstrate the impact that inaccuracy of
material behavior characterization can have on the predicted
collapse load.
The physical pipe model included the entire pipe
circumference because it allows for variable wall thickness by
specifying an eccentricity typical in seamless pipe products.
Eccentricity was not applied in this investigation. The pipe
model also incorporates ovality.
The pipe configuration modeled was a 457 mm inch
diameter outside diameter pipe with 19 mm wall thickness
(D/t = 24) and an ovality of 0.25% (API RP 1111). The mapped
mesh was built using 27-node brick elements with high-order
special functions, which reduce the mesh density required. The
large-strain and large-displacement formulations are used to
ensure that the geometry, pressure loading and resulting
stiffness matrix are updated every solution time step. Time-step
solutions were found using the Newton-Raphson solver. The
analyses were focused on identifying the onset of instability and
no effort was made to model the extreme deformation of a
collapsed pipe.
The only load applied to the model was uniform pressure to
the external element surfaces. Pressure loads are automatically
updated to account for surface deformations. No triggers, other
than the initial oval geometry, were used to initiate the collapse.
The primary use for this model is the assessment of collapse
risk for pipe and casing designs as opposed to predicting
deformed pipe geometries. For this reason a simple collapse
criterion is used to evaluate performance, but displacement
based pressure loading using fluid elements will be considered
in future analyses.
The finite element model is also setup to allow various
axial loads, but in the analyses presented here the axial pipe
displacements were constrained to simulate plane strain
conditions. This constraint will result in axial stress in the pipe
wall. Performance of this pipe collapse model was validated
against results in [11].
This investigation focuses on the impact of material
characterization errors on collapse pressure predictions. The
impact of changes in yield strength, stress-strain curve shape
and post-yield hardening are demonstrated. The base stress-
strain curve is an elastic-perfectly plastic response with
550 MPa yield strength. Variations are shown for increased and
decreased yield strength, strain hardening, and for materials
demonstrating rounded stress-strain curves. All material models
employed a kinematic hardening law.
Residual stress was not considered in the analyses reported
here. Line pipe produced by the UOE/JCO forming process
contains residual stress due to the forming and welding
procedure [6]. The two longitudinal edges of the formed plate
are brought together to form the O and the seam is then welded.
Residual stress within a pipe is typically determined by
measuring the spring when a ring of pipe is axially slit. Residual
stresses within the pipe wall contribute to non-uniform yielding
and tend to decrease the pipe collapse resistance.
Hoop expansion done to reduce out-of-round has the
secondary effect of reducing residual stress. The plastic hoop
expansion also leads to the Bauschinger effect when the pipe is
subject to hoop compression unless the pipe is thermally treated
after expansion. Coating applications, which require the pipe to
be heated, may be sufficient to reduce or eliminate the
Bauschinger effect.
MATERIAL INPUT CURVES AND COLLAPSE RESULTS
Four different sets of stress-strain curves were used to
investigate how inaccuracies in material characterization impact
predictions of pipe collapse pressure. The three parameters
investigated are yield strength, post-yield hardening and
rounded stress-strain behavior. In all analyses the elastic
modulus was 205 GPa and the Poissons ratio was equal to 0.3.
The collapse pressures from the analysis results, listed in
the tables associated with each sensitivity analysis, are the
pressure at which the slope of the ovality-external pressure
curve exceeds 0.5%/MPa. This criteria is somewhat arbitrary,
but is related to the rate of change of the geometry which drives
the pipe collapse.
Yield Strength
The impact of yield strength was observed from collapse
analyses employing elastic-perfectly plastic material
formulations with three different yield strengths 500 MPa,
550 MPa and 600 MPa. The material model input is shown in
Figure 4.
The results of the yield strength investigation are shown in
Figure 5. The change in ovality follows the linear elastic
response until yielding begins in the pipe cross-section. At that
point the loss in stiffness associated with yielding causes the
sensitivity of ovality to applied external pressure to greatly
increase and the ovality curve departs form the elastic behavior.
The external pressure at which the ovality curve departs the
elastic response is directly related to the yield strength of the
material. The characteristics of the departing curves are all very
similar due to identical hardening behavior. The slope of the
ovality-external pressure curve becomes steep very quickly
because the materials do not harden once they have yielded.
5 Copyright 2012 by ASME
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5%
Stress
(MPa)
Strain (%)
500 MPa
550 MPa
600 MPa
Yield Strength

Figure 4. Elastic-perfectly plastic material curves.
The collapse pressure at each yield strength is compared to
the elastic collapse pressure in Table 1. The 10% decrease and
increase in yield strength from 550 MPa results in a 5%
decrease and 4% increase in collapse pressure.
0.0%
0.5%
1.0%
1.5%
2.0%
2.5%
3.0%
0 10 20 30 40
Ovality
External Pressure (MPa)
500 MPa
550 MPa
600 MPa
Elastic
Yield Strength

Figure 5. Ovality response for change in yield strength
compared to elastic material.
Table 1. Collapse pressure yield strength sensitivity.
Yield Strength (MPa) Collapse Pressure (MPa)
500 31.65
550 33.30
600 34.67
Elastic 38.73
Post-Yield Hardening
Three different rates of post-yield hardening were
investigated using a bilinear material model. The bilinear
material model is defined by an elastic modulus, a yield
strength/strain and a plastic modulus. Post-yield hardening
moduli used here were 550 MPa, 2,050 MPa and 20,500 MPa.
The input material curves are shown in Figure 6 and the results
are shown in Figure 7.
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5%
Stress
(MPa)
Strain (%)
550 MPa
2050 MPa
20500 MPa
Post-Yield Hardening

Figure 6. Material input used to investigate impact of post-
yield hardening
0.0%
0.5%
1.0%
1.5%
2.0%
2.5%
3.0%
0 10 20 30 40
Ovality
External Pressure (MPa)
550 MPa
2,050 MPa
20,500 MPa
Elastic
Post-Yield Hardening

Figure 7. Ovality response to three different post-yield
hardening conditions.
The results indicate that there is little impact of the selected
post yield hardening magnitudes under these load and geometry
conditions (i.e., the curves lie on top of each other). The
6 Copyright 2012 by ASME
collapse pressures for the elastic-plastic materials, listed in
Table 2, are all very similar. The strain hardening rates used in
these analyses have very little impact on collapse performance
of the mid-range D/t pipe analyzed. Strain hardening will have a
larger impact on pipe with small D/t ratios for which initiation
of collapse is more heavily dependent on plastic deformation
behavior.
Table 2. Collapse pressure strain hardening sensitivity.
Hardening (MPa) Collapse Pressure (MPa)
550 33.30
2,050 33.31
20,500 33.45
Elastic 38.73
Rounded Stress-Strain Curve
Perhaps the most important difference that may occur
between circumferential compressive stress-strain response and
measurements in other orientations is the rounding of the stress-
strain curve that can result due to cold working during the
forming operation. In particular, the expansion operation leads
to circumferential plastic tensile deformation, and when
subsequent external pressure is applied the loading is reversed.
It is well established that the carbon steels used in pipe lines
have a reduction in yield strength (the Bauschinger effect) and
rounding of the stress-strain curve in the reverse loading
direction.
Five material input curves were generated to approximate
the response of a material, subjected to various levels of
accumulated plastic strain, to a load reversal. For these curves it
is appropriate to define the proportional limit as the stress at
which the stress-strain curve departs from the linear elastic
behavior. In a rounded curve the proportional limit is typically
much less than the measured yield stress. The five curves
having proportional limits of 10 MPa, 137.5 MPa, 275 MPa,
412.5 MPa and 550 MPa are shown in Figure 8. Each curve
becomes perfectly plastic at approximately 0.75% strain and
550 MPa stress. These round curves were implemented using
the elastic-plastic multi-linear material modeling capabilities
and hence the segmented look of the curves in Figure 8.
The resulting collapse behavior is shown in Figure 9 to
have a significant impact on the pipe collapse behavior. The
ovality of a pipe with rounded stress-strain behavior deviates
from the elastic ovality response at an applied external pressure
that is proportional to the proportional limit. The rate at which
the ovality departs from the elastic response is then governed by
the slope of the input material curve. In this example, input
curves with low proportional limits have higher initial post-
yield hardening and therefore do not depart from the elastic
response as quickly as do the materials with higher proportional
limits.
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
0.0% 0.2% 0.4% 0.6% 0.8% 1.0% 1.2%
Stress
(MPa)
Strain (%)
500 MPa
412.5 MPa
275 MPa
137.5 MPa
10 MPa
Proportional Limit

Figure 8. Rounded stress-strain curves representing
material response under load reversal.
0.0%
0.5%
1.0%
1.5%
2.0%
2.5%
3.0%
0 10 20 30 40
Ovality
External Pressure (Mpa)
550 MPa
412.5 MPa
275 MPa
137.5 MPa
10 MPa
Elastic
Proportional Limit

Figure 9. Impact of round stress-stress strain curve on
ovality.
The collapse pressures listed in Table 3 quantify the impact
of rounded stress-strain curves on collapse pressure. Although
the modeled materials all arrive at a perfectly plastic response at
550 MPa, the collapse response is dictated by the early yield
behavior of the material. The resulting collapse pressure is a
function of the proportional limit and the initial hardening
rather than the yield strength measured at larger strains.
7 Copyright 2012 by ASME
Table 3. Collapse pressure stress-strain curve roundness
sensitivity.
Proportional Limit (MPa) Collapse Pressure (MPa)
10 20.53
137.5 22.54
275 25.34
412.5 29.72
550 33.30
Elastic 38.73

Constant Yield Strength Variable Strain Hardening
In the previous examples, materials were specified to
demonstrate the impact of yield strength, post-yield strain
hardening and round stress-strain curves due to cold working
one variable at a time. Pipe materials are produced to meet a
material property specification including yield strength, ultimate
tensile strength and elongation. Yield strength is the dominant
controlling material property for elastic-plastic collapse
initiation defined within material grade specifications. Ultimate
tensile strength may have a secondary effect on the post yield
hardening, but the yield strength must lie within a specified
allowable range.
Five material responses were generated using a
Needleman
12
stress-strain curve to satisfy a minimum X80 yield
requirement (i.e., yield strength equal to 550 MPa). The
Needleman method, Eqn. 1 describes a stress strain curve based
on a proportional limit,
Prop
, the strain at the proportional limit,

Prop
=
Prop
/E, and a hardening parameter, n.

>
(
(

+
|
|
.
|

\
|
s =
|
|
.
|

\
|
=
Prop
n
Prop
Prop
Prop
Prop
Prop
n n
E
c c
c
c
o
c c c
c
c
o
o
1
1
(1)
The hardening parameters for the five stress-strain curves
were determined by forcing the Needleman curve through the
specified proportional limit point (
Prop
,
Prop
) and the yield
point (
Yld
,
Yld
). This resulted in five curves of various
roundness ranging from perfectly plastic (
Prop
=550 MPa, n=)
to very round (
Prop
=300 MPa, n=3.85) shown in Figure 10.
These stress-strain curves all satisfy the 550 MPa yield strength
requirement.
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5%
Stress
(MPa)
Strain (%)
550 MPa
500 MPa
450 MPa
400 MPa
300 MPa
Proportional Limit

Figure 10. Stress-strain curves all having 550 MPa yield
strength.
The collapse results in Figure 11 show that, although these
materials all have the same yield strength, there is considerable
variation in the collapse pressure. The collapse point is
controlled by the proportional limit and the initial hardening at
stresses just greater than the proportional limit. These results
emphasize that elastic-plastic collapse cannot be accurately
predicted only on the basis of yield strength or material grade
there must be consideration for the shape of the stress-strain
curve where it becomes non-linear.
0.0%
0.5%
1.0%
1.5%
2.0%
2.5%
3.0%
0 10 20 30 40
Ovality
External Pressure (MPa)
550 MPa
500 MPa
450 MPa
400 MPa
300 MPa
Elastic
Proportional Limit

Figure 11. Variation of ovality responses resulting from
550 MPa yield strength materials.
The collapse stresses, defined by the point when the slope
of the ovality-external pressure curve exceeds 0.5%/MPa, are
listed in Table 4. The table highlights the reduction in collapse
8 Copyright 2012 by ASME
pressure with a decrease in proportional limit. The table does
not reveal the benefit of high strain hardening behavior
following the proportional limit, which reduces the sensitivity
of pipe ovality to the applied external pressure.
Table 4. Collapse pressures for materials all having
550 MPa yield strength.
Proportional Limit (MPa) Collapse Pressure (MPa)
300 26.89
400 29.79
450 31.19
500 32.39
550 33.30
Elastic 38.73

MEASURED AXIAL TENSILE AND CIRCUMFERENTIAL
STRESS-STRAIN CURVES
The examples in the previous section were based on stress-
strain curves generated for parametric assessment of yield
strength, post-yield hardening and roundness. The question
remains what is the impact of real measured differences
between axial tensile and circumferential compression stress-
strain curves?
The measured stress-strain curves shown in Figure 3 were
implemented within the collapse model to illustrate the impact
of variations in real material response on collapse prediction.
The measured stress-strain curves were input into the collapse
model via the multi-linear elastic-plastic material model.
Results of collapse analyses on 340 mm diameter casing with
12.2 mm wall thickness (D/t=27.9) are shown in Figure 12.
0.0%
0.5%
1.0%
1.5%
2.0%
2.5%
3.0%
0 5 10 15 20 25
Ovality
External Pressure (MPa)
Circ. Comp.
Axial Tension
Elastic
Stress-Strain Source

Figure 12. Collapse behavior based on measure axial
tensile and circumferential compressive stress-strain
curves.
Collapse pressures, listed in Table 5, indicate a difference
of almost 20% between collapse pressures due to the variation
in measured axial tension and circumferential stress-strain
curves.
Table 5. Comparison of collapse pressures predicted using
axial tension and circumferential compression stress-strain
curves.
Stress-Strain Source Collapse Pressure (MPa)
Axial Tension 16.73
Circumferential Compression 19.97
Elastic 23.40

The large difference between collapse pressures predicted
based on measured axial tension and circumferential material
behaviors provides a compelling argument for performing
circumferential compressive testing since it is material
properties in the circumferential direction that control collapse
resistance.
CONCLUSIONS
In this investigation, yield and post-yield properties were
explored to determine what influence they have on performance
limits under active loading conditions of external pressure.
Unlike some strain-based, or passive loading scenarios, where
large and often counterintuitive sensitivities can be
demonstrated, in this application, the sensitivity is controlled
primarily by the stress where the material response departs from
elastic behavior. Given this strong correlation between collapse
limits and departure from elastic behavior in the circumferential
direction, the method for characterizing circumferential
compressive behavior demonstrated here, presents a significant
means for improving collapse predictions and explaining
differences that are often noted in collapse pressures between
design, test and analysis methodologies.
For the pipe geometry considered, the predicted collapse
pressure is most strongly influenced by the point of initial
yielding in the material. Use of elastic-perfectly plastic material
demonstrated that the collapse pressure becomes larger as the
yield strength is increased. The increase in collapse pressure is
not proportional to the increase in yield strength due to the
additional impact of pipe geometry. In these analyses it was
pipe ovality that initiated and drove collapse.
There was little impact on collapse when the material
behavior was changed from perfectly plastic to strain hardening
with a hardening modulus up to one tenth of the elastic
modulus. The results indicate that a larger strain hardening
moduli is required to have an impact that is comparable to that
of the pipe ovality. This lack of sensitivity to changes of the
bilinear hardening rate is a result of the selected pipe geometry.
Greater sensitivity is expected in pipe with low D/t ratio that
incurs greater plasticity during the initial stages of collapse.
The impact of a rounded stress-strain response, on the other
hand, has a very significant impact on the collapse behavior and
resulting collapse pressure. Such rounding of the stress-strain
curve can be the result of pipe fabrication methods, such as
expansion. The collapse behavior is dependent on both the
9 Copyright 2012 by ASME
proportional limit and the initial strain hardening modulus. The
low proportional limit of the rounded stress-strain curve leads to
early yielding, but the strong initial strain hardening leads to
maintained stability until at larger strains the tangent modulus
load and the stiffness decreases.
The pipe material must be properly characterized to
accurately predict collapse loads. The knowledge of only yield
strength is not adequate because of the strong sensitivity of
collapse resistance to stress-strain curve shape. Circumferential
tensile plastic strain in the pipe wall, due to the expansion
during fabrication, leads to low-yield strength, rounded
circumferential compressive behavior when external pressure is
applied. These characteristics have a detrimental impact on
collapse resistance. It follows that material characterization for
collapse analyses should consist of circumferential compression
to correspond to the deformation and stress applied during
collapse.
The constraints of the pipe wall geometry make it difficult
to fabricate a circumferential specimen, but it is essential that
the pipe wall is not straightened since straightening introduces
plastic deformations which impact subsequent measurements. A
method of testing a straight, but not straightened, specimen
circumferential specimen under compression has been
developed. Compression is applied at a constant strain rate to
reveal the stress-strain character during initial yield.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Noetic Engineering 2008
Inc. for providing the resources to complete this paper. The
authors would also like to express gratitude to the American
Petroleum Institute for allowing publication of test data
produced to support standards development.
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