The fracture behaviour of a welded tubular joint: an ESIS round robin on failure assessment methods: Part V: screening method by required toughness and plastic stability considerations

A simplified failure assessment method, which is meant to be appropriate for a first screening of the considered structure with respect to its defect sensitivity, is applied to the T-joint of the ESIS round robin [Fracture behaviour of a welded tubular joint--round robin on failure assessment methods, First Information Package GKSS, 1994; Proceedings of 10th European Conference on Fracture, Berlin, vol. 1, 1994, p. 787]. The method enables one to identify fracture critical parts and to predict roughly the behaviour of a crack-like defect. It consists of an overall required toughness criterion to predict whether or not cleavage fracture can be initiated by a surface crack, and of a simplified stability analysis of the subsequent tearing process. This information can provide the basis to decide whether or not a more detailed failure assessment is required. Combined with analytical calculations of the overall plastic limit loads, the loading and fracture behaviour of the T-joint could be predicted by this simple and cost-effective method with reasonably good accuracy.