An Experimental and Finite Element Study of the Ductile Tearing Characteristics of High-Toughness Gas Pipeline Steel

摘要

This paper reports recent results from a set of experimental and computational studies of ductile flat fracture in modern gas pipeline steel. Experimental data from plain and notched cylindrical tensile bars and standard C(T) specimens together with damage mechanics theories have been used to capture the flat fracture characteristics of a gas pipeline steel of grade X100. The modelling was via finite element analysis using the Gurson-Tvergaard modified model (GTN) of ductile damage development. The assumption of effective material damage isotropy was sufficiently accurate to allow the transfer of data from the notched bars to predict, in a 2D model, the crack growth behaviour of the C(T) specimen. This was in spite of the considerable ovalisation of the bars at the end of their deformation. However, it was not possible to obtain similar accuracy with a 3D model of the C(T) test, even after a large number of attempts to adjust the values of the GTN parameters. This, and the anisotropic shape change in the tensile bars, suggests very strongly that the damage behaviour is so anisotropic that conventional models are not good enough for a full engineering description of the flat fracture behaviour. Suitable averaging (of shape) in the modelling of the notched bar data, and the companion averaging associated with the 2D model of the C(T) data provide a relatively fast way of transferring engineering data in the tests. There is a discussion of potential ways in which to incorporate 3D effects into the modelling for those purposes where the considerable increase in computational time (due to the microstructurally-sized finite elements needed to capture the damage behaviour) is acceptable in order to include through-thickness effects.