CRACK OPENING AREA SOLUTIONS FOR THROUGH-WALL CRACKS IN A COMPLEX GEOMETRY

摘要

This paper presents the results of a finite element study that has been undertaken to evaluate crack opening areas (COA) for through-wall flaws located in the region where an attachment is "welded" to a plate geometry. This represents the first stage of a study to evaluate crack opening area solutions for flaws situated in complex geometries such as pipe elbows, nozzles and other attachments. The work has been performed by way of 3D finite element methods. In addition to COA evaluations, stress intensity factors have been determined in the study. The crack opening areas and stress intensity factors evaluated for this complex geometry have been compared with those for the same flaw sizes located in a simple plate geometry. This has led to an initial understanding of how conservative or otherwise the use of plate solutions is for representing the more complex geometry cases.