Viii Paper 07
Viii Paper 07
*T A Smith
1. INTRODUCTION
No major failures of Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) storage vessels have been
reported in the UK, and historically the UK has a good record in that there have
been no large releases due to spontaneous tank failure. Nevertheless it was
against the wider background of pressure vessel experience that it was decided
to analyse an LPG storage vessel. The analysis is confined to a static above
ground tank used for the pressurised storage of LPG and of 100 te capacity.
Since 1962 the Safety and Reliability Directorate in conjunction with a group of
major engineering and insurance companies, has undertaken surveys of
conventional pressure vessels. (Refs 1.2.3). The principal objective of the
surveys was to obtain data from which to assess the reliability of pressurized
plant built to high standards of construction.
*Safety & Reliability Directorate, UKAEA.
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The surveys were conducted with the objective of identifying failure locations,
numbers, causes, method of detection, and operating conditions from a researched
population with minimum thickness and pressure parameters. These are listed in
the reports.
Evidence gathered for these reviews showed that the majority of failures
manifested themselves as cracks, some of which leaked, but there were also a
number of catastrophic failures which resulted in a large discharge of contents.
Probabilistic failure predictions based on data gathered for the surveys are
possible for generic categories of vessel and could prove useful. Assessment of
individual components or small populations of components are somewhat more
difficult. While data exists from which judgement on failure probability may be
made, other considerations need to be taken into account when analysing the
probable behaviour of a specific vessel category. These can best be solved by a
deterministic approach based on fracture mechanics theories hence the reason for
work described in subsequent sections of this paper.
The main property in fracture studies is the material toughness under various
conditions of stress, mechanical properties and temperature. Material toughness
is a measure of the ability of a material to withstand the stress intensifying
effect at a crack tip. In ductile materials it does this by deforming mainly
elastically in very low stress situations, or plastically as stress levels
increase. At a critical dimension the net section under the crack becomes
unstable and fracture results. There can be, and usually is, a degree of stable
crack growth before the onset of instability. The object of fracture mechanics
is to predict at what size and under what conditions a defect length becomes
critical.
The three fracture mechanics approaches used in this analysis have been selected
for the following reasons.
c) Numerous techniques are available for extending LEFM into the elastic
plastic regime. Crack opening displacement (COD) measurements are
currently the most widely used of several modifying parameters and
these have been selected for this analysis.
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All fracture mechanics theories are sensitive to a number of input data func-
tions, although in this respect the stress concentration theory is less sensi-
tive than others because it relies on standard material property data which is
readily and regularly established. Other approaches are dependent upon a number
of derived data which include various toughness parameters, energy functions,
material resistance, crack opening displacement measurements, compliance
functions.
When none of these data are available for a vessel under consideration use has
to be made of relevant correlating relationships with known material properties
and data from similar steel.
Steel. selected for the storage of potentially hazardous substances must have
adequate strength, be compatible with tank contents and show little or no
deterioration of properties under service conditions. It must remain ductile
and maintain its resistance to defect propagation under the most arduous of
operating environments, and allow the production of high quality welds. The
mechanical properties of the weld metal and heat affected zone should be at
least as good as that of the parent plate particularly as surveys of
conventional plant show weld and weld affected metal to be the most vulnerable
sites for flaws especially in regions of discontinuities.
Mechanical properties for plate to BS 1501:151 and weld metal were obtained for
yield stress, UTS and elongation together with a Charpy value at -15C
5.1 Shakedown
Stress levels were calculated for the various loadings to which the vessel is
subjected. These included primary and secondary stresses due to pressure, dead
weight, geometrical discontinuities.
Various factors will arise during the course of testing and operation which will
modify or influence the effect of the stressing system. For example, where peak
stress levels are at the value of the material yield stress the phenomenon known
as shakedown will occur during the first few operating cycles. In particular
the proof pressure test can have a significant effect as illustrated in Fig 2.
Describing this figure it can be seen that on loading up during the pressure
test, if the strain range associated with the linearised peak equivalent elastic
stress is
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Residual stresses resulting from welding a plate into a structure are essen-
tially of two kinds. There is the stress caused by general shrinkage and fit up
which affects the whole plate. But there is also the more significant stress
caused locally by the cooling contraction of the deposited weld metal and which
is generally considered to be of yield stress magnitude effective over a
distance of the order of the plate thickness.
Additional operational stresses may simply be added and may even cause some
defect propagation, but local yielding would relax the stress level before
unstable conditions were reached. This implies a form of mechanical stress
relief and can result from the application of a proof pressure test.
Since the great majority of defects are sited in weld affected material it is
the weld properties which control crack tip behaviour. This is significant
where linear elastic conditions are applied and little, or no, plastic
deformation occurs. However when elastic plastic or general structural collapse
is concerned large areas of the component will be affected and the structural
behaviour of the component will be controlled by the yield point of the parent
plate. Therefore since weld metal comprises only a small fraction of the total
volume of affected material it is the yield stress of parent plate which should
be used in shakedown analysis. For vessels which are subjected to fatigue
loadings, combinations of stresses from all sources should be kept within
minimum plastic limits so that the vessel may 'shakedown' to purely elastic
behaviour and plastic cycling causing incremental collapse can be avoided.
5.2 Bulging
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5.3 Fatigue
6. STRESS LEVELS
Maximum stresses resulting from dead weight and pressure loadings will be those
associated with the vessel acting as a beam and those stresses produced by
reaction at the supports, which are assumed to be rigid for the purposes of this
report. Other areas of concern are those around the larger penetrations such as
the manway penetration.
Design rules for determining stress levels in the saddle areas are contained in
the pressure vessel design code BS 5500:1982.
These rules and formulae have been used to calculate stress levels in the saddle
areas for the tank support system. Future modifications to these design
criteria are likely as a result of work currently being carried out at
Strathclyde University (Ref 5) where tests and calculations suggest that for a
rigid saddle support the stresses predicted by BS 5500 are exceeded by a factor
of 2, while the stress levels for a flexible support system more closely agree
with BS 5500 values. However collapse tests on vessels indicate that even with
rigid supports the design code values are safe.
Further analytical work (Refs 6 and 7) confirm that the maximum stress in
vessels supported by rigid or flexible saddles occurs in the region of the
saddle horn. Results also show that for flexible support saddles there is a
useful built in factor of safety when the design is based on BS 5500. The peak
stress in the vessel is in general higher than values obtained by use of
relevant code formulae but it is restricted to a small area of the vessel and is
mainly a bending stress.
In the 1960s Irvine and Quirk developed a fracture mechanics theory involving
only conventional mechanical properties, Ref 8.
Consider half the crack length , then if all the load shed by the crack
material is carried by a region "S" at the crack tip then
where S is the width of the stress perturbation at the crack tip which is raised
to an average stress of (Fig 3(A)).
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Considerable effort has been made to establish the dependence of 'S' on values
of Charpy' energy," yield stress and tensile elongation. Ref 9 uses the large
volume of data from several steel specifications to obtain a correlation. This
showS a fairly weak dependence on charpy energy and yield stress since they are
only] Effective to the power 1/3, but the influence of elongation in the value of
'S' is much more significant as it is effective to the power 2.
Where bulging can take place failure can occur at significantly lower values of
internal pressure. The actual effects can be calculated by the formula
where the constant K is proportional to the third power of the material yield
stress. Results of tests carried out on cylinders ranging in diameter from 12.0
inches to 9 ft 6 inches are plotted in Fig 5. The results indicate that the
relationship between K and is given by the equation
Fig 6 shows the effect of the additional bending stresses due to bulging and
illustrates that failure pressures are in fact lower where bulging can occur.
Since the component diameter 'D' appears in the denominator of the bulging
effect equation given above, and is also squared, it is obvious that as a
cylinder or sphere increases in diameter the bulging effect tends to vanish and
flat plate equations may be applied. In the case of partial penetration cracks
the bulging action is a latent effect until snap through of the remaining
ligament occurs. In the particular case of the 100 te vessel it was found that
the bulging could be neglected.
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Table 1 lists crack sizes using equation 7 and typical material properties for
weld metal and plate to BS1501:151. Plate crack sizes at operating and test
pressures respectively are 3.3 and 2.2 inches (84mm and 56mm) while for
unstress-relieved conditions after shakedown the crack size is 2.1 inches
(53mm). The equivalent figures for weld metal are 3.6 and 2.6 inches (92mm and
66mm) reducing to 1.0 inches after shakedown (25.4mm).
It will be assumed that stresses are due to static loads and act in a direction
perpendicular to the defect. Dynamic effects are not considered. Since the
tank under consideration has been stress relieved residual stresses should be
minimal.
Typical Yield stress, ultimate stress and elongation values are available.
Charpy impact values show considerable scatter; lower bound values will
therefore be used.
It is recommended however that this correlation be used for Charpy values above
the transition temperature and for steels with relatively high (110-246 KSI)
yield points. At low energy absorption levels little variation appears to exist
between slow bend and dynamic Charpy values and a correlation for below
transition temperature values for steels with a yield stress range 36-50 KSI is
given by
where for structural mild steels A can be taken as 5. Another general tran-
sition range correlation for steels whose yield points vary between 39 and 246
KSI is
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From mill tests a typical figure for the yield stress of BS 1501:151
material
where C is obtained from PD 6493 Fig 14 and is dependent upon the ratio of
applied stress to yield stress
Ref 11 gives a value of 1.8 for a machined fillet stress concentration factor
(K ). A welded fillet such as the geometry at the saddle attachment would
attract a higher value than this, say 2.5. (BS 5500:1982 (2.3.3)).
Stresses included under the symbol "Q" are self equilibrating and result from
mechanical loads differential thermal expansions etc and for the purpose of this
analysis are assumed to have a negligible input to the overall applied stress.
Equation 13 gives values of a which are listed in Table 1. These crack sizes
are acceptance sizes and a guide to the sensitivity requirement of inspection
techniques and attract a safety factor of between 2 and 10 (Ref 12).
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Two of the more generally used parameters for extending LEFM are the 'J' contour
integral and the crack opening displacement (COD) measurement.
A value for the 'J' integral can be estimated experimentally and is a function
of the area under the load extension curve for cracked specimens. In an
elastic-plastic condition it is a measure of potential energy change in the
system for an increment of crack extension.
A more widely used technique is that of the COD measurement which is a measure
of the deformation at a crack tip at the instant of crack propagation. There is
a considerable volume of COD data and several correlations have been formulated
with other mechanical properties such as Charpy 'V notch energy and material
yield stress. It is perhaps because of this access to a greater data base that
COD has become such a generally used concept.
The technique for extending fracture mechanics into the elastic plastic
condition used below is the one of crack opening displacement (COD) measurement
(o). For plane stress non workhardening conditions Dugiale Ref 13 has developed
a relationship combining crack length , yield stress applied stress ,
Youngs modulus (E), and COD so that
Burdekin and Dawes have derived a correlation of COD and yield strain to
calculate a critical crack length
Cotton (Ref 13) has modified the Burdekin approach for elastic plastic
conditions and derived
Figures 16.6 through to 16.11 of Ref (13) plot COD V temperature for various
steels, C Mn, weld metal, and heat affected zone (HAZ) material. Test data are
at temperatures between -20C and -150C. Considerable scatter is evident but a
lower bound COD value for parent plate material extrapolated to +10C is 0.66mm
(25 x 10 inches). For weld metal and HAZ material CODs at 10C are
respectively 0.2mm (8.4 x 10 ) and 0.19mm (7.8 x 10~ inches). A further
extrapolated value for mild steel plate gives 0.45mm (18 x 10~ inches) at
+10C.
Ref (14) gives a value of for BS 1501:151 material as 1.15mm (45 x 10-3
inches) as ascertained by 3 point bend tests on material machined from test
vessels. This figure was reasonably constant over a temperature range from +8C
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to +90C. A further reference (Ref 15) plots COD V temperature for mild steel
wide plate tests. Fig 3.11 of this reference gives 0.75mm (30 x 10 inches) as
the COD value at 10C.
Refs (14) (15) and (16) show that CODs for BS 1501:151 as measured during vessel
tests are generally greater than the values obtained by laboratory bend tests.
8. FATIGUE ASSESSMENT
If we assume that the component will not fail by brittle fracture with little or
no extension of an original defect, it is necessary to calculate the number of
operational cycles necessary for a small crack to grow to a critical size.
These calculations require a knowledge of the basic laws of crack growth and the
material variables contained in the constant 'C and the index 'n' of the crack
growth formula.
A large volume of work has been done to establish the constants 'C and 'n' and
as with other basic data considerable variation exists.
PD 6493:1980 gives C = 1.7 x 10~ and n = 4 for propagation rate per cycle and
a 99% probability of survival - the units being mm/cycle and K in MN-3 /2.
12
Fulmer Research Institute, (Ref 17) gives C = 10 and n = 4 . 0 for "structural
steels" - units being in m/cycle.
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Assuming a partial penetration defect has perforated the vessel wall with a
length equal to the wall thickness and for conservatism using the edge crack
constant 1.12, the number of cycles for it to grow to twice the wall thickness
is given by
where, is the increment of crack growth and a is the average crack size
Using the PD 6493:1980 constants (as they give the greatest growth per cycle)
N = 150 cycles
Using the Barsom and Rolfe constants which give the lowest crack growth per
cycle, gives a value of N in excess of 3 x 10 cycles. Fig C.2.1 of BSS
5500:1980 gives a value for N of approx 2.5 x 10 cycles obtained from smooth
specimens. For approximately 35% of operating time the tank will be about half
full, ie will contain between 40 and 60 tons. 40% of its time it will contain
between 60 and 100 tons and for the remaining 25% of its time less than 40 tons.
If these figures taken from actual field record are typical the number of full
stress range cycles seen during the tank lifetime will be relatively small, say
350 during service life. It is apparent, therefore that despite the difference
in numbers of cycles the use of different constants will produce against the
number of cycles the vessel will see, fatigue is unlikely to be a significant
problem as a failure mode.
9. CONCLUSIONS
Selecting data which give the maximum and minimum crack growth per
cycle gives the number of cycles for 2a=t to 2a=2t as
3
The equivalent figure from BS5500 is 2.5 x 10 . Providing
inspection ensures that no major defect will exist initially,
fatigue should not be a significant problem as a failure mode.
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Fatigue data which would establish the constant and index in the
Paris crack growth formulae would be useful additional information.
10. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The work reported in this paper was carried out under contract for the Health
and Safety Executive and is more widely covered in the Safety and Reliability
Report, SRD R314, "An Analysis of a 100 te Propane Storage Vessel".
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
views or policy of the Health and Safety Executive.
11. REFERENCES
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14) The Application of COD Measurements to Large Scale Test Behaviour. 'A
COWAN, N KIRBY. Symposium on Practical Fracture Mechanics for Structural
Steels.
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