Proceedings of the 8th International Pipeline Conference

IPC2010
September 27-October 1, 2010, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

IPC2010-

A STUDY ON THE RESIDUAL STRESS AND FRACTURE BEHAVIOR OF PIPELINE GIRTH

WELDS JOINING PIPES OF DIFFERENT STRENGTH)
Woo-sik Kim*, Jong-hyun Baek, Choel-man Kim and Young-pyo Kim
R & D Center, KOGAS, 638-1 il-dong Ansan kyunggi-do KOREA, 425-790
Tel: 82-31-400-7470, Email: wskim@kogas.re.kr

Key Words: Residual Stress, Fracture Behavior, Girth Weld, Strength Mismatch, Natural Gas Pipeline

ABSTRACT apply to fitness-for-service assessment for gas/petrochemical

The following cases of girth welded region between
pipelines having different base strength were considered. The
pipeline shows different fracture behavior from girth welded
pipeline between similar materials due to strength mismatch and
residual stress distribution.
Investigation about the residual stress distribution and
fracture behavior of pipeline having girth welds of the differnet
base metals (X70/X65 and X70/X42) with different material
property has performed using finite element analysis.
The effect of mismatched material property on girth weld
region is negligible when shape of pipeline is similar. The
assessment for occurance of crack on girth weld region with
pipes with material property mismatched can be replaced by that
of the similar pipes with low strength on the point view of
conservation
1. INTRODUCTION
Fracture and gas leaking of the in-service natural gas
pipeline may cause severe human and physical damage. It is
important to assess structural integrity of weld rigion of pipeline
which is a representative weak part of in-service natural gas
pipeline. Residual stresses are generated due to local rapid
heating and cooling during weld operation. These residual
stresses can degrade integrity of the weld region of pipeline as
accelerating initiation and growth of stress corrosion and fatigue
cracks.
KOGAS (Korea Gas Corporation) has buried natural gas
pipeline with base metal having higher strength than the past
decades. Sometimes API X70 grade pipe connected to API X65,
X42 grade pipe in the process of pipeline extension. The
deformation and fracture behavior of girth weld between
different-grade pipeline shows difference due to strength
mismatch and residual stresses.
While many studies about residual stresses of pipeline girth
welds between same types of pipelines have been presented,
fracture behaviors of weld region between different grades of
pipe are not fully defined. API 579 Code [1], which is used to
plant equipment, didnt consider the case of girth welding
between pipelines having differnet material property.
In this study, residual stress distributions and fracture
behavior of pipeline girth welds joining pipes with different
strength are investigated by using the finite element analysis
simulating welding process.
2. MATERIAL PROPERTIES AND BOUNDARY
CONDITION
2.1 Type of pipeline
Figure 1 shows configuration of pipeline girth weld joining
pipes with different strength. The diameter of each pipe is 30
inches. Base metals are API 5L X70/X65 or X70/X42. ER70S-
G welding rod has used during welding for 1st pass and 2nd
layer and E9016-G for the other pass.
The finite element modeling for stress analysis has
performed using the actual dimension of pipe. The geometry of
weld region and pipeline has simplipied in the analsys of limit
load and fracture mechanics as illustrated at Figure 2. The
average thickness of simplified pipe is 16.5 mm. Table 1
represents welding conditions of girth welding procedure [2].
2.2. Pipe material properties
Thermal, mechanical and fracture properties of pipeline are
defined from ASME Code, Sec. II, Part D [3], presentation of
previous research [4, 5] and experimental result. Poison's ratio is
set to be a constant value of 0.29 independent to temperature.
The thermal conductivity in liquid has been considered three
times that of solid lines considering the effect of thermal
convection. Density, thermal conductivity, heat capacity, latent
heat, elastic modulus and thermal expansion coefficient are
assumed to be the same regardless of type of pipeline.

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Figure 1 Schematic diagram of girth weld with dissimilar
pipes
(a) Actural geometry of pipeline
(b) Simplified geometry
Figure 2 Shape of pipeline girth weld with dissimilar
material
2.3. Boundary conditions
Boundary conditions in finite element analysis of gas
pipeline are defined into two large categories, the welding
process and the hydraulic test and normal operation.
1) Welding process
- Thermal boundary conditions: The natural convection
state (ambient temperature 20 , thermal convection factor
10W/m2 ) both inside and outside of the pipes during welding
is considered. The groove part during welding is the insulation
state. The air-cooling on room temperature is considered after
welding process. Weld process has performed at 1500
higher than liquid line welding metal, and preheating is
considered.
The volumetric heat flow and the surface heat flow
are defined as equation (1), (2) using voltage E and current
I in welding procedure specification and efficiency of each
welding method where V is the volume of weld metal, A the
surface area to be exposed on weld metal. For similar welding
shape of each welding process, the volumetric heat flow and
surface heat flow is adjusted.
(1)
(2)
- Mechanical boundary conditions: The nodes of pipe ends
are arrested only to the perpendicular direction of cutting
surface, and no loads are applied at pipeline.
2) Hydrostatic test and normal operation
- Thermal boundary conditions: It is kept at room
temperature and the inside temperature of the pipe is kept to -
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1 during normal operation, and the exterior surface of the
pipe is insulated.
- Mechanical boundary conditions: The nodes of pipe ends
are arrested only to the perpendicular direction of cutting
surface. The pressure of 7.84 MPa is applied onto the inner
surface of the pipe during hydraulic test, and the pressure of
6.86 MPa is applied during normal operation. The end-cap
induced tensile stress calculated by the equation (3) is
applied to the pipe(X70) end during hydraulic test and normal
operation (where is the pressure, the pipe inner diameter,
the pipe outer diameter)
(3)
3. RESIDUAL STRESS ANALYSIS
3.1. Finite element modeling
Figure 3 shows the 2-dimensional axis-symmetric finite
element model using axisymmetric element model. 8-node
axisymmetric elements are used in model. Total numbers of
element and node are 1,079 and 3,468, respectively. Welding
process defined as 6 passing in accordance with welding
procedure specification.
Figure 3 2-dimensional axis-symmetric finite element
model of girth weld joining pipes with dissimilar materials
3.2. Stress analysis
Plastic behavior is considered as the isotropic hardening
and the annealing of weld metal to ensure the conservative when
residual stress analysis. The stress analysis is performed in the
view of residual stress, hydrostatic test and normal operation.
Contour of Figure 4 shows as-welded residual stress
distributions. The hoop residual stress is relatively higher than
others while the radial residual stress is relatively lower than
others. Figure 5 shows the distributions of residual stress along
thickness of welding centerline when welding and operation
process. After hydrostatic test the hoop residual stresses near
outer surface decrease significantly while the axial residual
stresses decrease slightly, and the reduction of residual stresses
by repeating normal operation is negligible. The stress value in
normal state generally increases during normal operation. The
axial stress at the middle part of thickness appears compressive
stress, while the hoop stress acts as tensile stress throughout
entire thickness.
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 Figure 6 represents the residual stress distribution of inner
surface of pipe. In case of inner surface axial stress, the welding
residual stress effect in the more than part from the weld
centerline becomes extremely small, and the hoop stress
more than shows the same tendency (Where is average radius,
average thickness) The tensile stress increses at inner heat
affected zone, and the maximum stress occurs at X70-side weld
toe. The axial stress closes to zero and the tensile hoop stress
occurs at inner weld metal.
Figure 7 shows the stress distribution at outer surface of
pipe. In case of outer surface axial stress, the welding residual
stress effect in the more than part from the weld
centerline becomes extremely small, and the hoop stress
more than shows the same tendency. The tensile stress is largely
(a) Radial (b) Axial formed at outer heat affected zone, and the maximum value
occurs at X70-side weld toe. The compressive axial stress and
the tensile hoop stress occur at center of the weld metal.

(c) Hoop
Figure 4 As-welded residual stress distributions

(a) Axial stress

(a) Axial stress

(b) Hoop stress

(b) Hoop stress

Figure 5 Change of residual stress distributions along
thickness of weld center line with welding and operation process

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 (c) Axial stress at weld region
(b) Hoop stress

(d) Hoop stress at weld region

Figure 6 Stress distributions on inner surface (c) Axial stress at weld region

(d) Hoop stress at weld region

(a) Axial stress Figure 7 Stress distributions on outer surface

Figure 8 represents the distribution of stress along thickness

in steady state during normal operation, depending on the stress
distribution line of Figure 4 (c). The stress distribution shows
the largest value at the interface between X70 pipe and weld

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 region and the smallest value in the interface between X65 pipe
and weld region.
Figure 9 shows the change of stress distribution along
thickness of weld center line region with strength mismatch.
Figure 10 shows the variation of stress distribution along inner
and outer surface with strength mismatch. The effect of strength
mismatch in base metals is small. In other words, the effect of
strength mismatch of base metals in structural integrity can be
considered negligible.

(a) Inner surface

(a) Axial direction

(b) Outer surface

Figure 10 Variation of stress distribution along inner and
outer surface with strength mismatch

(b) Hoop direction
Figure 8 Change of stress distribution along thickness in
steady state during normal operation with weld deposition line
4. FRACTURE ANALYSIS
4.1. Finite element modeling
Cracks in gas pipeline mostly occur on the outer surface of
pipe, outer surface crack with circumferencial direction has been
simulated. Figure 11 represents the finite element model with
outer circumferential surface crack with dissimilar base metals
pipeline with radial ratio r/t=10, crack depth ratio a/t=0.8, crack
length ratio /=0.25 and weld width ratio h/t=0.5. Finite
element characteristics are 1/4 model with considering
symmetric conditions. Finite element models have been made
with changing outer surface crack shape, width of weld region
and crack position.

Figure 9 Change of stress distribution along thickness of

weld center line with different mechanical property
Figure 11 Finite element model of girth welded-pipeline
with cract on outer surface

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4.2. Plastic limit load analysis
If the crack is located in the middle of weld metal, the crack
shape model of girth weld can be simplified by assuming similar
base metals with low or high strength base metals as shown in
Figure 12.
(a)
(b)
Figure 12 Two simplified shapes for weld metal central
crack (a) similar metals of low strength (b) similar metals of
high strength
Figure 13 represents the simplified models for edge crack
between weld region and low strength base metal. Figure 13 a)
shows a case that the weld metal is replaced by high grade
pipeline, and Figure 13 (b) shows that all the pipe change to
homogeneous pipe with pipeline with same grade. Figure 14
shows the limit load of edge crack between weld metal and low
strength base metal. Table 2 show variables for simplified
models. Assuming homogeneous pipes with low strength base
metal, the limit load of conservative value with 20% less than
the actual limit load can be predicted.
(a)
(b)
Figure 13 Simplified models for edge crack between weld
metal and low strength base metal (a) replacement weld metal
with high strength base metal (b) homogeneous pipes of low
strength base metal
Figure 14 Comparison the limit load of edge crack between
weld metal and low strength base metal with that of two
simplified models
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Figure 15 represents the simplified models of edge crack
between weld metal and high strength base metal, which consist
of (a) replacement weld metal with low strength base metal (b)
homogeneous pipe with low strength base metal (c)
homogeneous pipe with high strength base metal.
Figure 16 shows the limit load of edge crack between weld
metal and high strength base metal and that of three simplified
models for variables in Table 2. Assuming homogeneous pipe
with low strength base metal, the limit load can be predicted
60% less than the actual limit loads. A case of homogeneous
pipe with high strength would be predicted non-conservative
value with 3~10% more than actual limit load. Therefore,
assuming homogeneous pipe with low strength base metal, the
limit load can be predicted conservative than the actual limit
load.
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 15 Simplified models of edge crack between weld
metal and high strength base metal a) replacement weld metal
with low strength base metal (b) homogeneous pipe with low
strength base metal (c) homogeneous pipe with high strength
base metal
Figure 16 Comparison the limit load of edge crack between
weld metal and high strength base metal with that of three
simplified models
5. SUMMARY
1) The effect of different mechanical property on the
assessment of pipeline with girth weld of different strength
(X70/X65, X70/X42) is negligible.
2) The assesment process in case of crack occurs at girth
welded region of pipeline with different mechanical can be
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 replaced with that in the homogeneous pipe with low strength in
the point of view of conservative assessment.
6. REFERENCE
[1] ASME & API, Fitness-For-Service, API 579-1/ASME
FFS-1, 2nd Edition, 2007.
[2] KOGAS, Company Standard, WPS-X70-X65, Rev. 0,
2005.
[3] ASME B&PV Committee, ASME B&PV Code, Sec. II,
Part D, 2001.
[4] C.E. Truman, et al., The Net Residual Stress
Measurement and Modeling Round Robin on a Single Weld
Bead on Plate Specimen, Int. J. of Pressure Vessels and Piping,
Vol. 86, pp.1-2, 2009.
[5] PVRC, Prediction of Residual Stresses, PVRC Joint
Industry Program, Phase I, 2006.

Table 1 Condition variables for girth weld

Welding Welding Weld Welding Welding Welding
pass type metal current (A) voltage (V) velocity (cm/min)

1 GTAW ER70S-G 100~170 12~20 6~12

2 GTAW ER70S-G 170~240 15~24 8~14

3 SMAW ER9016-G 80~150 20~40 3~12

4, 5 SMAW ER9016-G 100~180 20~42 3~12

6 SMAW ER9016-G 80~150 20~40 3~12

Table 2 Variables for model geometry about limit load analysis

Case / a/t h/t

case 1 0.6 0.5 0.5

case 2 0.6 0.8 0.5

case 3 0.6 0.5 1.0

case 4 0.8 0.5 0.5

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