Allowable sizes of axial flaws in pressurized pipes made of moderate toughness materials

Failure stresses for axially part-through flawed pipes made of moderately t ough materials are predicted by several fracture mechanics. However, allowa ble flaw sizes using these fracture mechanics cannot be simply described be cause there are many effective parameters such as pipe diameter, wall thick ness, material properties, etc. To establish codes and standards to evaluat e flaws for piping of light water reactors, we determine unified allowable sizes for axial flaws in pipes subjected to internal pressure from J-integr al based fracture mechanics. The allowable sizes are simply tabulated using a single parameter which consists of pipe geometry and material properties . (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.