Possibility of using ribs to protect pipelines from the long crack propagation

Abstract

This research aims to build a finite element model of oil or gas steel pipelines transmission. The model has been developed in that crack propagation in pipes can be reduced as possible to avoid the failure. The suggestion that is taken into consideration for this purposeis to stopping crack propagation as possibly, is by using ribs as arresters. Different thicknesses have been tested for the ribs used in this study. The first one was of 0.02 m, while as the second thickness was of 0.05 m. The dimensions of pipe are of 0.01 m thickness, and diameter of 0.5 m. The model of pipe consists of three parts. The first part has two different lengths 2 m and 3 m. The second, which is the rib, is of length of 0.15 m. The third part of pipe has the length of 1 m. So all the three parts are made up the case study that was studied in this work. The value of stress intensity factor K1 for different lengths of cracks has been calculated by the finite element model deve-loped by using ANSYS package. These calculations were applied with and without ribs. The results showed that when using the ribs, the stress intensity factor would be reduced significantly. This leads to reduce the possibility of failure.