The effect of diameter/thickness ratio on the ratchetting behaviour of pressurised plain pipework subjected to simulated seismic loading

A series of five tests have been conducted using cylindrical specimens having mean diameter/thickness (D_m lt) ratios in the range 9≤D_m lt ≤25. The cylinders were subjected to an internal pressure (calculated as the design pressure for each cylinder) and alternating bending moments at frequencies typical of seismic events. Hoop ratchetting was recorded in all cylinders at bending moments greater than the yield moment. The moment level for the onset of ratchetting was found to be in agreement with theoretical predictions. The variations in behaviour caused by changing D/t ratios is discussed.     

Measurement of dynamic response and failure of pipework

Pipework in nuclear power stations is designed to withstand the effects of earthquakes. The current methods of design are known to be very conservative and lead to the inclusion of large numbers of pipework restraints. These restraints are only included to limit stresses in the unlikely event of an earthquake but they can, under some circumstances, increase stresses during comparatively frequent thermal transients and thus their unnecessary inclusion is undesirable.
With the ultimate objective of reducing aseismic design conservatism the experimental work, described in this paper, has been conducted at Berkeley Nuclear Laboratories (BNL) to investigate the response and failure of pipework under high levels of dynamic excitation. The initial work was aimed at response prediction, but it is now clear that the improvement of failure criteria is a preferred route to reduce design conservatism. The measurement of high strains and dynamic yield performance of materials has necessitated the development of novel measurement techniques which have wider application in other areas. This experimental work is now finished, and the results are being used to support a change in the design codes.     

Integrity of pressurized components with localized corrosion under internal pressure and transient thermal loading

This paper is devoted to the modelling and analysis of the problem of the safety and residual lifetime of pressurized components (e.g. pressure vessels, apparatus, pipelines) with zones of local corrosion damage. Corrosion damage is the most common form of structural material degradation in service conditions, in particular, in the chemical and gas, and oil industries. Attention is paid to nonstationary regimes of the component operation, e.g., start‐stop regimes. It is shown that the critical parameters calculated taking into account the nonstationary loading can be lower compared with ones determined for the stationary regimes, e.g., on the basis of the ASME Code B31G.     

袖套式挠性接管性能及管路减振效果的试验研究

本文对袖套式挠性接管的平衡性能、静刚度参数及阻抗特性进行了试验研究 ,并在试验室用船用往复式舱底泵对袖套式挠性接管进行了不同压力状态下的管路减振效果的试验 ,试验结果表明袖套式挠性接管具有良好的减振效果和实船运用前景。     

Buckling and fracture behaviour of cracked thin plates under shear loading

Thin-walled structural components are widely used in several engineering applications such as in aerospace, naval, nuclear power plant, pressure vessel, mechanical and civil fields. Since they are frequently characterised by a high slenderness, the safety assessment of such structural components requires to carefully consider the buckling collapse which can heavily limit their allowable bearing capacity. For very thin plates, buckling collapse can occur under compression, shear, or even under tension. In the present paper, the buckling and fracture collapse mechanisms in an elastic rectangular thin-plate with a central straight crack under shear loading are analysed. Different boundary conditions, crack length and orientation are considered. Through a parametric finite elements (FE) numerical analysis, the crack sensitivity of the collapse load of such a structural component is examined. The obtained results are discussed, and some interesting and useful conclusions are drawn. The collapse mechanism occurring earlier (buckling or fracture) is found by varying the fracture toughness of the material, and some failure-type maps depending on the geometrical parameters of the crack are determined.     

Characterising the elastic behaviour of fine-grained subgrade soils under traffic loading

Resilient modulus is a measure of the elastic behaviour of subgrade soil under traffic loading. The design thickness of a pavement structure and its predicted performance are highly dependent on subgrade modulus. Characterisation of subgrade resilient modulus involves conducting advanced repeated loading triaxial testing that requires special equipment and technical experience that are not available in many soil laboratories. The objectives of this paper were to characterise the resilient modulus of typical fine-grained subgrade soils and develop design inputs for the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide. The resilient modulus of subgrade soil samples was tested at different levels of moisture content. Results of the laboratory testing were used to develop prediction models for resilient modulus as function of physical properties of the subgrade soil and stress state. The proposed models were compared to those developed under the Long-Term Pavement Performance programme. The results showed that the proposed models provided more reliable predictions with lower root mean square error.     

Fracture behaviour of plain and fiber-reinforced concrete with different water content under mixed mode loading

In the present paper, plain concrete and fiber-reinforced concrete are considered from the point of view of the mechanical characteristics, with particular emphasis on the fracture resistance, for different values of the water/cement ratio and different amount and type (metallic or polymeric) of reinforcing fibers. The main mechanical characteristics (such as compressive strength and tensile strength) of the examined materials have experimentally been determined, and several pre-cracked specimens have been tested under three-point bending up to the final failure in order to study the fracture behaviour by also evaluating the fracture energy. Furthermore, the crack paths for static tests under displacement control have been obtained, and the load–displacement deflection curves have been determined for different crack configurations. Assuming the fracture surface characterised by a fractal dimension, some quantitative evaluations of the fracture energy are carried out. Then, the fracture behaviour and the post-peak behaviour of plain and fiber-reinforced specimens are discussed, and the effects of reinforcing fibers are quantified. Some conclusions are finally drawn.     

In-situ investigation on the deformation and damage behaviour of diamond-like carbon coated thin films under uniaxial loading

In the present work, the failure behaviour of diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings on thin steel substrate under uniaxial tensile loading is analyzed in-situ in scanning electron microscopy as well as ex-situ using focused ion beam cross section and transmission electron microscopy. Aim of the work is to find correlations between the failure behaviour of the coating system, the adhesion and the stress-strain behaviour of a DLC coating system under tensile loadings conditions. Therefore thin amorphous DLC films were coated onto thin stainless steel foils using a plasma assisted chemical vapour deposition technique. It is found from the in-situ investigations that at increasing strains cracks were formed in the coating, with decreasing spacing at higher strains. By comparing uncoated steels foils with coated systems the stress-strain behaviour of a DLC coating was determined. The DLC coating, although already strongly cracked, bears loads up to a total strain of 15%. Cross section analyses with a focused ion beam and microscopy techniques supported these investigations. During straining the formation of two deformation bands adjacent to the Cr adhesion layer was observed. This deformation bands also indicate a high interfacial adhesion.     

Determining the effect of voids in GFRP on the damage behaviour under compression loading using acoustic emission

Defects in composite structures, such as voids, have a major influence on the damage behaviour and mechanical properties. Based on the conducted experiments the influence of voids on the mechanical properties of multi-axial glass fibre non crimp fabric composites under quasi-static compression load was examined. Optical in-situ inspection and acoustic emission measurement were applied to detect the failure behaviour during compression tests, while paying special attention to the early stages of damage appearance where the Young’s modulus is determined. The specimens were produced by resin transfer moulding with different processing parameters to obtain various void contents and morphologies.     

设置BRB桥梁排架墩基于位移抗震设计方法

为发展具有损伤可控和自复位性能桥梁双柱墩,选取铅挤压阻尼器(lead-extrusion dampers, LEDs)为可更换耗能装置,并通过预应力筋提供自恢复力,组成摇摆-自复位(rocking self-centering, RSC)双柱墩体系(RSC-LEDs);通过对其抗震性能的研究,对应发展了一种基于等能量设计流程(equivalent energy-based design procedure, EEDP)的设计方法。首先建立了RSC-LEDs双柱墩的数值分析模型,结合一RSC双柱墩试件的拟静力结果验证了建模方法的正确性。在此基础上,定性分析了阻尼器出力、初始预张拉力、无粘结预应力筋配筋率、上部结构重量及盖梁-墩柱刚度比对RSC-LEDs双柱墩滞回性能的影响。设计了32组不同参数的RSC双柱墩试件开展回归分析,并结合RSC-LEDs双柱墩的力学特性,得到了RSC-LEDs双柱墩等效屈服强度、刚度的半经验计算公式。结合中国公路抗震设计规范和EEDP,提出一种适用于RSC-LEDs双柱墩体系的两阶段抗震设计方法,设计案例分析表明：半经验计算公式可较为准确地估算RSC-LEDs双柱墩的等效刚度及屈服强度;所提出的设计方法可使RSC-LEDs双柱墩达到预期的能力曲线,并实现在E1地震作用下保持弹性,在E2地震作用下LEDs屈服耗能且地震位移需求得到控制的设计目标。     

Fatigue behaviour of alumina-fibre-reinforced epoxy resin composite pipes under tensile and compressive loading conditions

Fatigue tests have been conducted on composites consisting of epoxy resin reinforced with alumina fibres (AFRP) under cyclic tensile and compressive loading conditions with the variation of fibre orientation. The behaviour of the stress/strain curve for a ±45° sample is different from those for the ±15 and ±25° composite specimens, whereas, the monotonic strength decreases with increase in fibre angle for all specimens, which satisfies the maximum stress failure criterion. Fatigue results show that the applied stress decreases with an increase in the number of cycles to failure under both loading conditions for all composite pipes, but for the ±45° sample the decrease was slow. The results of fatigue tests on a macroscopic level indicate that the matrix crack density slowly increased with increase in the normalized number of cycles to failure in all the specimens. The normalized apparent stiffness therefore falls with an increase of the normalized number of cycles to failure. However, the maximum stress decreased with the increase in the number of cycles to failure in the case of the ±45° pipe. Finally, it is observed that matrix cracking and delaminations are occurring in the ±45° sample whereas delamination and fibre buckling are appearing in the ±15 and ±25° samples.     

Linear matching method on the evaluation of plastic and creep behaviours for bodies subjected to cyclic thermal and mechanical loading

On the basis of the previously proposed Linear Matching Method (LMM), a new LMM model and its corresponding numerical procedure are developed in this paper to allow for the evaluation of plastic, creep and ratchet strains of structures subjected to a general load condition in the steady cyclic state. The constant and varying residual stress fields associated with differing mechanisms are obtained as well as the steady cyclic stress state of the whole component for further structural design and assessment. The total strain range for use in fatigue assessment, including the effect of creep and plastic strains, is obtained. A typical example of 3D holed plate subjected to cyclic thermal load and constant mechanical load is analysed here in detail to verify the applicability of the proposed numerical technique. The LMM results in the paper are compared with those obtained by ABAQUS step‐by‐step inelastic analyses. This comparison demonstrates that the LMM has both the advantage of programming method and the capacity to be implemented easily within a commercial finite element code, in this case ABAQUS. The LMM provides a general‐purpose technique for the evaluation of creep/fatigue interaction in the steady cyclic state. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis of multi-layered filament-wound composite pipes under combined internal pressure and thermomechanical loading with thermal variations

The composite pipes manufactured by filament winding technology have anisotropic behavior owing to different reinforced ply angles. Composite pipes can be exposed to the thermomechanical loading due to hot fluid that flows into them. In this paper, based on the three-dimensional anisotropic elasticity, an exact elastic solution for thermal stresses and deformations of the pipes under internal pressure and a temperature gradient has been studied. Giving heat convection conditions the variation of temperature field within the pipe is obtained by solving the conduction equation at the wall. The influence of temperature field in the governing equations of thermoelasticity has been considered via a constitutive law. The shear extension coupling is also considered because of lay-up angles. Stress, strain and deformation distributions for different angle-ply pipe designs are investigated using the present theory.     

Analytical investigation and parametric study of lateral impact behavior of pressurized pipelines and influence of internal pressure

This article provides a combined computational and analytical study to investigate the lateral impact behavior of pressurized pipelines and inspect all the parameters such as the outside diameter and internal pressure and evaluate how they affect such behavior. In this study, quartic polynomial functions are applied to formulate the maximum crushing force (F_max), maximum permanent displacement (W), and absorbed energy (E) of the pressurized pipelines during the impact problem. The effects of the diameter and pressure on F_max, W, and E are therefore illustrated through analyzing these functions. Response surfaces are also plotted based on the generated quartic polynomial functions and the quality (accuracy) of these functions are verified through several techniques.     

Experimental and numerical investigation of the creep behaviour of Ni‐based superalloy GH4169 under varying loading

The high‐temperature creep experiment of Ni‐based superalloy GH4169 under the constant loading and varying loading conditions was conducted by using the round bar specimens. The creep time‐strain curves under different loading conditions were obtained to study the high‐temperature creep behaviour of GH4169 superalloy. At the same time, the longitudinal and lateral sections near the fracture of creep specimens were observed by the optical microscope, and the specimens with smaller grain corresponded to the larger creep strain rate. In view of the dispersion of the creep curves, the corresponding data processing method was put forward, and on this basis, a model that can describe the 3 stages of creep with certain physical meaning was established. The simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental results, especially the creep deformation under the varying loading condition. The predicted results of the relative time hardening model are closer to the experiment compared with time hardening and strain hardening model. The creep model is realized by the user's material subroutine code in a commercial FEM software package, which can be used as the basis of creep analysis for engineering structures.     

Dynamic response of prismatic metallic sandwich tubes under combined internal shock pressure and thermal load

This paper presents an analytical model for the transient thermomechanical response in the sandwich tube subjected to internal shock pressure and thermal load. A sandwich model (3-layers model) and a multilayer model for predicting transient temperature are proposed, and the effective thermal conductivities in each layer are obtained by the analytical method based on the Fourier law of conduction. The analysis of dynamic response is conducted by using the high order sandwich shell models, considering the shear deformation and compressibility of the core. Moreover, several numerical simulations are carried out by finite element (FE) analysis, which are compared with the results obtained by using analytical models. The slight discrepancies between the numerical simulations and analytical results indicate that the sandwich model (3-layers model) can predict the transient temperature in the sandwich tube correctly, and the thermomechanical response obtained by the high order sandwich shell model is within acceptable accuracy. Thermal stresses are strongly dependent on temperature gradient in the sandwich wall. The dynamic resultant forces with large amplitudes will induce structural fatigue, which is harmful to the structural life and reliability. Therefore, the thermal stresses should be considered for the design of sandwich tubes or pipes subjected to thermomechanical load.     

Effect of fatigue loading on the bond behaviour between UHM CFRP plates and steel plates

Extensive research has been conducted on static bond behaviour between CFRP and steel. However, very limited research is available on the effect of fatigue loading on the bond behaviour between CFRP and steel. This paper attempts to fill the knowledge gap in this area. A series of static and fatigue tests on UHM (ultra high modulus) CFRP plate and steel plate double strap joints were conducted. Five specimens were tensioned to failure under static loading as control specimens. The other 12 specimens were tested under fatigue loading with load ratios ranging from 0.2 to 0.6 (defined as the ratio of the maximum fatigue load to the average static bond strength of control specimens). After going through pre-set number of fatigue cycles, the specimens were tensioned to failure under static loading. The failure modes, residual bond strength and residual bond stiffness of such specimens were compared with those of control specimens, to facilitate the investigation of the effect of fatigue loading on the bond behaviour. Microscopic investigation was also performed to reveal the underlying failure mechanism.     

Critical plane approach for the assessment of the fatigue behaviour of welded aluminium under multiaxial loading

ABSTRACT Multiaxial stress states occur in many welded constructions like chemical plants, railway carriages and frames of trucks. Those stresses can have constant and changing principal stress directions, depending on the loading mode. Latest research results on welded steel joints show a loss of fatigue life for changing principal stress directions simulated by out‐of‐phase bending and torsion compared to constant directions given by in‐phase loading. However, aluminium welds reveal no influence of changing principal directions on fatigue life compared to multiaxial loading with constant principal stress directions. This behaviour is not predictable by any conventional hypothesis. A hypothesis on the basis of local normal and shear stresses in the critical plane has been developed and applied to aluminium weldings.     

Interactive mechanisms between the internal blast loading and the dynamic elastic response of spherical containment vessels

The interactive mechanisms between internal blast loading and dynamic elastic response of spherical containment vessels are studied in this paper. The blast loading history in containment vessels can be divided into three periods, i.e. the primary-shock period, the shock-reflection period and the pressure-oscillation period. It is shown that the initial response of the containment vessel depends on both the impulse and the shape of the primary-shock depending on the ratio of the loading period to the breathing mode period. However, during the shock-reflection period, the response of the containment vessel can be coupled with the reflected shock waves in the vessel, especially when the dominant frequency of reflected shock waves is close to the breathing mode frequency of the vessel. During the pressure-oscillation period, the dynamic loading is mainly the oscillation of the internal pressure due to the oscillatory volume change of the vessel, which couples dissipatedly with the vibration of the vessel leading to reduced vibration amplitudes. The effects of the influential non-dimensional parameters on the resonant interaction in shock-reflection period are discussed, based on which guidelines are recommended for avoiding the strain growth in the shock-reflection period in the design of spherical containment vessels.