Modeling of crack initiation, intensity, and growth rates from flaws in welded steel structures

The intent of this dissertation is to develop a method to model the effects of pitting corrosion or mechanical damage on the strength and fatigue life of a welded structure. The problem was first examined when pitting corrosion was discovered in a 5,200 gallon capacity pressure vessel at John F. Kennedy Space Center. Other similar corrosion and mechanical damage is often encountered in service and a general method to model internal defects and crack-like flaws in welded structures is needed.; The severity of the defect was modeled by finite element methods. Defect intensity and crack growth rate are both modeled using the finite element method developed here. Existing published solutions and fracture mechanics testing was performed to verify the modeling method.; Welded structures such as pressure vessels have a metallurgical discontinuity between the parent metal and the heat affected zone and also between the heat-affected zone and the weld filler material. An added complexity is the fact that, in general, the mechanical and fracture mechanics properties of these three zones are different. The welded area also will have some level of residual stress resulting from the differential cooling and solidification after welding. The residual stresses created by solidification and cooling will be incorporated into the finite element model. The results will be checked by measuring the actual stresses on the test specimen.; The unique contribution of this research is a finite element based tool, which provides a numerically efficient method to evaluate strength, resistance to fracture, and remaining life of a welded structure with surface damage. The new method is based on the theoretical square root displacement field, fitted to the local nodal point displacements, in the vicinity of the crack front. A linear finite element formulation is utilized, along with relatively coarse meshes, to accurately predict stress intensities. This new method is accurate for both two and three-dimensional geometries. A method for testing standard fatigue crack growth samples with residual stresses is also developed. A quadratic crack growth technique is developed to improve the accuracy of the finite element predictions over the existing linear methods. The predictions correlate well with measured data.