Behavior of girth-welded buried steel pipes under external pressure

Abstract

This paper presents finite element (FE) analyses to clarify the effects of external pressure on the residual stresses in a girth-welded steel pipe. At first, FE simulation of the girth welding process is carried out to obtain the weld-induced residual stresses employing sequentially coupled three-dimensional (3-D) thermo-mechanical FE formulation. Then, 3-D elastic-plastic FE analyses incorporating the residual stresses and plastic strains obtained from the preceding FE simulation are performed to investigate the residual stress behavior in the girth-welded pipe under external pressure. The FE analysis results show that the hoop compressive stresses induced by the external pressure significantly alter the hoop residual stresses in the course of the mechanical loading.Girth-welded steel pipe Weld-induced residual stresses Residual stress behavior External pressure Three-dimensional finite element analysis