Stephen J. Hudak

The Dependence of Crack Closure on Fatigue Loading Variables

Optical and electron microscopy and stereoimaging techniques are used to determine crack opening loads local to the crack tip in aluminum alloy 7091 and 304 stainless steel. It is found that the crack peels open nonlinearly such that significant load increases are necessary to open the crack the last few microns from the tip. The stress intensity range ratio is shown to depend on fatigue loading variables according to a given relationship.

Application of Probabilistic Fracture Mechanics to Prognosis of Aircraft Engine Components

It is generally accepted that traditional logistics functions including periodic nondestructive inspections and planned maintenance increase the reliability and readiness of turbine engines. Nevertheless, further significant enhancements in reliability and readiness are believed to be possible through the implementation of a prognosis system based on online monitoring and interpretation of critical engine operating parameters and conditions to diagnose potential problems and forecast readiness. An approach is presented for improving probabilistic life prediction estimates through the application of prognosis methods. Actual F-16/F100 usage data from flight data recorders were interfaced with a probabilistic life prediction code to quantify the influence of usage on the probability of fracture of an idealized titanium compressor disk. For the example cases considered, it is shown that usage variability leads to about 6 × × variability in life and from 10 × × to 100 × variability in the probability of fracture. The results suggest that variability in usage could provide a basis for selectively extending the life of aircraft engines.

Effect of Loading Frequency on Fatigue Performance of Risers in Sour Environment

ExxonMobil requires experimental verification of fatigue performance of fracture-critical risers designed for sour environments. Interaction between the sour environment and cracks in welded risers affects the crack-growth rate and, thus, the fatigue performance of the risers. Therefore, when conducting tests on riser welds in a sour environment, the frequency at which cyclicloads are applied during testing is critical to properly capturing the physio-chemical reactions and diffusion processes at the crack tip. Unfortunately, the load frequencies required to properly capture these effects are much lower than those currently used in cost-effective, resonant fatigue testing in air. Depending on the material, sour environment composition, and loading regime, testing at too high a frequency can eliminate the potential deleterious effects of the environment acting on the riser. Yet, testing at too low a frequency may not be practical. In order to determine the most efficient but technically valid load frequency to be used in a fatigue qualification testing program, a novel experimental screening methodology has been devised and implemented. In this paper, the proposed methodology is discussed and the results of a pilot test program conducted with C-Mn steel in a mildly sour environment are presented. For the particular sour brine, C-Mn steel and loading regime, it was found that the loading frequency could be increased up to about 1Hz, thereby making the fatigue verification tests more practical and cost-effective than the 1/3Hz currently used.Copyright

Fatigue Crack Growth Thresholds of Deflected Mixed-Mode Cracks in PWA1484

The fatigue crack growth (FCG) behavior of PWA 1484 single crystals was characterized in air under mixed-mode loading at 593°C as a function of crystallographic orientation using an asymmetric four-point bend test technique. Most mixed-mode fatigue cracks deflected from the symmetry plane and propagated as transprecipitate, noncrystallographic cracks, while self-similar fatigue crack growth occurred on the (111) planes in (111)/[011] and (111)/[112] oriented crystals. The local stress intensity factors and the crack paths of the deflected mixed-mode cracks were analyzed using the finite-element fracture mechanics code, FRANC2D/L. The results indicated that the deflected crack path was close to being normal to the maximum tensile stress direction where the Mode II component diminishes. Crystallographic analysis of the deflected crack paths revealed that the Mode 1 and the deflected mixed-mode cracks were usually of different crystallographic orientations and could exhibit different Mode I FCG thresholds when the crystallography of the crack paths differed substantially. These results were used to identify the driving force and conditions for cracking mode transition.

High-Cycle and Low-Cycle Fatigue Resistance of Girth Welds in Sour Service

The fatigue performance of fracture-critical production lines, such as risers and flowlines, has been shown to significantly degrade in the presence of sour hydrocarbon production caused by water injection of reservoirs. To ensure the reliability of the fatigue design under such conditions, experimental verification of the degradation effect on fatigue life due the presence of H2 S is required. To that end and over the past several years, ExxonMobil has developed new testing methodologies to evaluate the riser fatigue performance for both in-air and sour conditions. This paper reviews the general elements of the fatigue qualification process and presents new sour fatigue data aimed at assessing performance at the high-cycle fatigue (HCF) and low-cycle fatigue (LCF) regimes. These new data are relevant to that seen in steel catenary riser (SCR) and flowline thermal responses, respectively. Testing methodologies for each regime are discussed and results presented. The new data are interpreted within the context of previous data in the intermediate-cycle fatigue (ICF) to provide a more robust basis for riser design. The main finding is that the new data support a constant slope S-N curve for the practical domain of fatigue lives to which offshore lines are typically designed under sour conditions.Copyright

Model for the Effect of Fiber Bridging on the Fracture Resistance of Reinforced-Carbon-Carbon

A micromechanical methodology has been developed for analyzing fiber bridging and resistance-curve behavior in reinforced-carbon-carbon (RCC) panels with a 3D composite architecture and a SiC surface coating. The methodology involves treating fiber bridging traction on the crack surfaces in terms of a weight function approach and a bridging law that relates the bridging stress to the crack opening displacement. A procedure has been developed to deduce material constants in the bridgiug law from the linear portion of the K-resistance curve. This approach has been applied to analyzing R-curves of RCC generated using double cantilever beam and single cantilever bend specimens to establish a bridging law for RCC. The bridging law has been implemented into a micromechanical code for computing the fracture response of a bridged crack in a structural analysis. The crack geometries considered in the structural analysis include the penetration of a craze crack in SiC into the RCC as a single-edge crack under bending and the deflection of a craze crack in SiC along the SiC/RCC interface as a T-shaped crack under bending. The proposed methodology has been validated by comparing the computed R-curves against experimental measurements. The analyses revealed substantial variations in the bridging stress (σ 0 ranges from 11 kPa to 986 kPa, where σ 0 is the limiting bridging stress) and the R-curve response for RCC due to the varying number of bridging ligaments in individual specimens. Furthermore, the R-curve response is predicted to depend on crack geometry. Thus, the initiation toughness at the onset of crack growth is recommended as a conservative estimate of the fracture resistance in RCC. If this bounding structural integrity analysis gives unacceptably conservative predictions, it would be possible to employ the current fiber bridging model to take credit for extra fracture resistance in the RCC. However, due to the large scatter of the inferred bridging stress in RCC, such an implementation would need to be probabilistically based.

Embedded Thin-Film Sensor for Crack Detection and Monitoring in Fracture Critical Turbine Engine Components

The development and implementation of an integrated health management system has the potential to significantly enhance the reliability and readiness of high-value assets, while concurrently decreasing sustainment costs. A key aspect of this approach is on-board sensing to provide continual feedback on the evolving damage state at the material and component level. This paper summarizes the development and status of an embedded, thin-film, wireless, sensor for detecting and monitoring material damage state (i.e., cracking) in critical turbine engine components at elevated temperature. The potential benefits of on-board detection and monitoring of defects, as compared to periodic depot inspections, were previously assessed using probabilistic simulations. These results provided target sensitivities for the development of the thin-film sensor. The status of the sensor system is summarized including its ability to generate elastic waves and detect/monitor fatigue cracks in engineering materials at temperatures to 500°F (260°C). Crack detection sensitivities with and without load application are compared, as well as those for wired versus wireless signal transmission.© 2006 ASME

Alterations in crack-tip deformation during variable-amplitude fatigue crack growth

Fatigue crack growth rate changes caused by single overloads and an overload followed by an underload have been studied in the high-strength aluminum alloy 7091. Crack-tip plasticity parameters were measured at each step in the loading sequence using the stereoimaging technique. Effective stress-intensity factor was measured with high resolution immediately at the crack tip both before an overload and during the subsequent growth rate retardation period. Crack-tip opening displacement and strain were altered in the same way as growth rate following the overload/underload events, and similitude with respect to crack-tip plasticity was preserved during the growth retardation period. Effective stress-intensity factor was found to correlate well with crack growth rate. Strains within the plastic zone were converted to stress at each step in load change. These stresses were then summed to determine the zone of residual stress caused by the overload. The region of compressive residual stress ahead of the crack tip was found to increase with overload severity but was limited to yield stress in magnitude. An underload shrank the spatial extent of the residual stresses caused by the overload.

Corrosion-Fatigue Performance of High-Strength Riser Steels in Seawater and Sour Brine Environments

Although new high-strength steels have recently been developed to meet the demands of increased reservoir pressures, and sour production fluids, the corrosion-fatigue performance of these new higher-strength materials is largely unknown. The goal of this study was to fill this knowledge gap by generating corrosion-fatigue data in two aggressive environments: 1) a sour production brine, and 2) seawater with cathodic protection. The focus of the current paper is on stress-life (S-N) corrosion-fatigue results in these environments, as well as a baseline air environment. Experiments were performed on five different steels with yield strengths ranging from 848 MPa to 1080 MPa. Prior frequency-scan results based on corrosion-fatigue crack growth rate data demonstrated that not all of these material-environment combinations exhibit a saturation frequency where the detrimental environmental effect approached a constant value as the cyclic loading frequency is decreased. Consequently, S-N tests were performed at different frequencies (0.01 Hz, 0.17 Hz, and 1 Hz), depending on the fatigue life regime, in attempting to match the loading frequencies experienced in service. Corrosion-fatigue occurred at stresses well below the fatigue endurance limit in laboratory air, and cyclic lives in the seawater with cathodic protection environment were found to be 2X to 10X less than those in the baseline air environment, while cyclic lives in the sour brine environment were found to be 30X to 100X less than those in the baseline air environment. In both environments, degradation was greatest at lower stresses in the high cycle fatigue regime. The effect of material strength level had little or no measurable effect on the S-N corrosion-fatigue performance, and the effect of cyclic frequency on the corrosion-fatigue performance was mixed. The S-N response to these two variables differed significantly from recently measured fatigue crack growth kinetics in these same materials that were performed in a companion study. Possible reasons for these differences are discussed.Copyright

Cryogenic Structural Performance of Corrugated Pipe

One alternative to developing offshore gas reserves is to use a floating LNG plant (FLNG) on site and export the LNG using tankers. This alternative requires the use of a reliable LNG transfer system between the FLNG and the tanker under offshore conditions. One such system involves a cryogenic hose, whose main body is a vacuum insulated, pipe-in-pipe hose made of corrugated stainless steel pipe (c-pipe) and flanged terminations. Given the novelty of the transfer system, ExxonMobil conducted an experimental program to understand the structural performance of the basic c-pipe under static and cyclic loading at room and cryogenic temperatures. This paper discusses overall qualification issues and presents the experimental methodology and results of structural performance tests of the full-scale c-pipe at both ambient and cryogenic temperatures. Fourteen full-scale, c-pipe static tests are reported, including tension, compression, bending, torsion, and internal pressure. In addition, 11 axial and three pressure fatigue tests are presented. One key result is that, overall, cryogenic temperature improves structural performance for the limit states tested, indicating that future qualification at room temperature would be sufficient. Moreover, the fatigue performance at both ambient and cryogenic temperatures surpassed the design curve reported in the literature for c-pipe.Copyright