Engineering failure assessment methods applied to pressurised components

Two different engineering flaw assessment procedures are applied to compone nt tests of pre-cracked pressure vessels. The first one is a failure assess ment diagram (FAD) approach according to the PD6493 procedure of BSI. The s econd one is a crack driving force (CDF) approach provided by the engineeri ng treatment model (ETM). The theoretical background of both the methods is discussed. As compared with the experiments both procedures yield conserva tive predictions of the experimental failure loads. The conservatism is sho wn to be acceptably small from a user's point of view. (C) 2000 Elsevier Sc ience S.A. All rights reserved.