An Equivalent Creep Crack Growth Model for Probabilistic Life Prediction of Plastic Pipe Materials

Life prediction in energy infrastructure such as gas pipelines is important to maintain the integrity of such systems. This paper explores a life prediction model for polyethylene materials in natural gas distribution pipelines under creep damage. The model uses a power law equation to describe the crack growth rate and an asymptotic solution for the stress intensity factor (SIF) calculation considering local geometry variations. The SIF solution considers the effect of stress concentration introduced by common damages in pipes such as rock impingement and slit. An effective initial crack size model is proposed for the life prediction of plastic pipes considering the intrinsic initial defect. Large loading-induced plastic deformation is included by a correction factor in the crack growth model. The model is calibrated and validated using experimental data on Aldyl-A pipes with different types of damage. Due to the stochastic nature of the crack growth process, uncertainty quantification is performed, and Monte Carlo (MC) simulation is used to estimate the failure probability. The predicted probabilistic life distributions under different loading conditions are compared with the experimental data. Some conclusions and future work are drawn based on the proposed study and experimental validation.