Failure pressure of medium and high strength pipelines with scratched dent defects

Abstract It is very important in engineering design and integrity assessment of pipeline to accurately predict its failure pressure, especially for the pipeline with mechanical damages. This paper numerically investigates the failure pressure of medium and high strength pipelines with scratched dent which is on the outer surface of the pipe. Pipe materials of two different grades are chosen in the analysis which represent medium and high strength steel, respectively. Failure pressure of an intact pipeline with fixed ends is derived analytically. On the basis of the maximum plastic strain failure criterion put forward by previous scholars, failure pressure of finite element models containing dent and scratch defects is determined. Parametric studies are carried out to obtain the influencing rule of the dimensions of dent and scratch. The effects of scratch length and depth on failure pressure with various dent depths are obtained. Finally, a formula is fitted for predicting the failure pressure of pipelines with scratched dents on the basis of finite element results. Compared to burst test data from literature, the proposed formula is proved to be reasonable.