Three-Dimensional Mixed-Mode Fracture Mechanics Methodologies for Structural Integrity Assessments of Welded Structures

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Safe operation of high-performance welded engineering structures, such as those in nuclear pressure vessel and piping, gas/oil pipelines, aerospace and offshore industries, is of significant practical importance. During the service life span, flaws can occur in the welds and are in the form of surface, corner and embedded cracks. Therefore, to ensure safety operation and to facilitate the life extensions of these structures, it is critically important to have advanced engineering tools to quantify the behaviors of such weldment flaws and to provide reliable estimates of the safety margins against fatigue and fracture failures. In current engineering practice, fracture mechanics based methodologies have been widely used for the safety assessment of defective welded structures. Within the fracture mechanics framework, special techniques for treating the material inhomogeneity, mismatch and crack front constraint, and for accounting for the effects of welding residual stresses, have now been well developed. However, most developments thus far are for flaws under mode I (opening mode) loading. The service conditions of engineering welded structures are complex, generally involving tension, bending, torsion and shear loading. As a result, the local loading conditions around 3D crack fronts consist of all three modes, i.e., mode I (opening), mode II (in-plane shear) and mode III (out-of-plane shear). To properly carry out the safety assessment for these cases, mixed-mode effects must be considered. Presently, specific tools are not available to properly carry out assessment of 3D flaws in weldments under mixed-mode loading. The objective of the proposed research is to fill this knowledge gap by developing and validating advanced engineering tools for the reliable assessment of structural integrity of welded structures with various 3D defects under complex mixed-mode service loading conditions. The proposed work includes advances in the following four areas: 1). characterization of crack front fields in weldments under mixed-mode conditions incorporating the effects of different features including material inhomogeneity, strength mismatch and residual stress; 2). study of failure processes of cracks in weldment using micromechanics-based models under mixed mode loadings to establish corresponding fracture failure criteria; 3). experimental testing of mixed-mode fracture and fatigue specimens with different weldment features to calibrate and validate the failure criteria; and 4). failure assessment and fatigue crack growth prediction of 3D defects in welded structural components by applying the newly developed fracture failure criteria. The outcome of the proposed research will provide comprehensive understanding of mixed-mode loading on ductile fracture and fatigue propagation behavior of weldments, and be of significant engineering importance to the design, safe operation of high-performance welded engineering structures.