Crack in Corrosion Defect Assessment in Transmission Pipelines

Cracks may occur coincident with corrosion representing a new hybrid defect in gas and oil pipelines known as crack in corrosion (CIC) that is not directly addressed in the current codes or assessment methods. Hence, there is a need to provide an assessment of CIC and evaluate the line integrity, as well as identify the requirements for defect repair or line hydrotest. An experimental investigation was undertaken to evaluate the collapse pressures of lines containing corrosion, cracks, or (CIC) defects in a typical line pipe (API 5L Grade X52, 508 mm diameter, 5.7 mm wall thickness). The mechanical properties of the pipe were measured using tensile, Charpy, and J-testing for use in applying evaluation criteria. Rupture tests were undertaken on end-capped sections containing uniform depth, finite length corrosion, cracks, or CIC defects. Failure occurred by plastic collapse and ductile tearing for the corrosion defects, cracks, and CIC geometries tested. For the corrosion defects, the corroded pipe strength (CPS) method provided the most accurate results (13% conservative on average). The API 579 (level 3 failure assessment diagram (FAD), method D) provided the least conservative collapse pressure predictions for the cracks with an average error of 20%. The CIC collapse pressures were bounded by those of a long corrosion groove (upper bound) and a long crack (lower bound), with collapse dominated by the crack when the crack depth was significant. Application of API 579 to the CIC provided collapse pressure predictions that were 18% conservative. Sixteen rupture tests were successfully completed investigating the failure behavior of longitudinally oriented corrosion, crack, and CIC. The pipe material was characterized and these properties were used to predict the collapse pressure of the defects using current methods. Existing methods for corrosion (CPS) and cracks (API 579, level 3, method D) gave conservative collapse pressure predictions. The collapse pressures for the CIC were bounded by those of a long corrosion groove and a long crack, with collapse dominated by the crack when the crack depth was significant. CIC failure behavior was determined by the crack to corrosion depth ratio, total defect depth and its profile. The results showed that the failure pressures for CIC were reduced when their equivalent depths were similar to those of corrosion and using crack evaluation techniques provided an approximate collapse pressure.