Fracture behaviour of stainless steel pipes containing circumferential cracks at room temperature and 280°C

Abstract The paper presents the experimental results of a research programme on fracture behaviour of austenitic stainless steel and TIG welds in pipes containing circumferential through-wall cracks at room temperature and 280°C. Pipes were loaded in pure bending using a four-point bend test method. The diameter of the pipes under investigation was 168 mm and 324 mm, with a thickness varying from 10 to 17 mm. As opposed to the behaviour of carbon steel pipes, it is found that the Net Section Collapse (NSC) criterion predicts the moment of instability. Crack mouth opening displacements (COD) and collapse moments calculated using the GE-EPRI engineering approach show a rather high scatter with respect to experimental results.