International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 79 (2002) 119126

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Residual stress effects on the fatigue life of an externally grooved thick-walled pressure vessel
Song-In Lee a, Seung-Kee Koh b,*
a

Department of Precision Mechanical Engineering, Chonbuk National University, Chonju, Chonbuk 561-756, South Korea b Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kunsan National University, Kunsan, Chonbuk 573-701, South Korea Received 18 June 2001; revised 5 November 2001; accepted 7 November 2001

Abstract To ensure the structural integrity of a thick-walled pressure vessel containing residual stresses induced by the autofrettage process, a fatigue life evaluation of the pressure vessel was performed based on the local strain approach. Residual stress distributions due to autofrettage loading were calculated using an elasticplastic nite element stress analysis. The tangential residual stress varied from compression at the inside radius to tension near the outside radius, showing a high stress concentration at the groove root. The local stresses and local strains calculated by the elasticplastic analysis were applied to the fatigue life evaluation of the pressure vessel. Reasonable agreement was found between the predicted and the experimental fatigue lives of the pressure vessel within factors of 34, depending on autofrettage level and the fatigue damage parameter. q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Thick-walled pressure vessel; Autofrettage residual stress; Elasticplastic nite element analysis; Local strain analysis; Fatigue damage parameter; Fatigue life prediction

1. Introduction For a thick-walled pressure vessel under internal pressure, the largest tensile tangential stress occurs at the inside diameter. Therefore, if the vessel is subjected to a pulsating internal pressure, then fatigue cracks usually originate at the inside surface and grow rapidly, resulting in nal fracture [1]. To prevent this catastrophic failure of the thick-walled pressure vessel, an autofrettage process that produces favorable compressive tangential residual stresses at the bore of the vessel has been commonly employed [2]. The compressive residual stress counteracts the tensile operating stress caused by the internal pressure, thus increasing the elastic strength of the pressure vessel [3]. The tangential compressive residual stress at the inside surface of the pressure vessel induced by the autofrettage process suppresses crack formation, resulting in a substantially improved fatigue life of the smooth pressure vessel. However, it should be noted that a tensile tangential residual stress is produced near the outside surface due to force equilibrium. Therefore, when structural discontinuities
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 182-654-469-4717; fax: 182-654-4694727. E-mail addresses: leesongin@hanimail.com (S.-I. Lee), skkoh@ks.kunsan.ac.kr (S.-K. Koh).

such as holes and grooves exist at the outside diameter of the pressure vessel for any engineering purposes, the combination of the stress concentration and the tensile stresses causes large tensile stresses at the discontinuities. These generate early crack formation and fast crack growth, thus resulting in a shortened fatigue life [4]. A thick-walled pressure vessel considered in this study was autofrettaged, and then a keyway groove was machined at the outside surface. In order to investigate the residual stress effects on the fatigue life of the externally grooved pressure vessel, residual stress distributions due to autofrettage loading were required. In this paper, the stress distribution of the pressure vessel was obtained by using the elasticplastic nite element technique. The fatigue life of structural components is generally considered to be composed of the crack initiation life and the crack propagation life. Given the relatively short crack propagation phase in the pressure vessel, due to fast crack growth, and to give a conservative prediction, the fatigue crack initiation life was dened as the fatigue life in this study. Based on the cyclic stressstrain properties and strainlife equation obtained from a previous study [5], the local strain approach incorporated with the stress analysis results and fatigue damage parameters was used to predict the fatigue life of the vessel. The predicted fatigue life was, then, compared to the

0308-0161/02/$ - see front matter q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0308-016 1(01)00132-6

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Table 1 Mechanical properties of ASTM A723 pressure vessel steel Young's modulus, E (GPa) Ultimate tensile strength, s U (MPa) 0.2% offset yield strength, s ys (MPa) 197 1264 1173

experimental fatigue life, which was determined from C-shaped simulation specimens. 2. Stress analysis of thick-walled pressure vessels 2.1. Smooth pressure vessel The pressure vessel used in this study was made of ASTM A723 Grade 1 steel. After being autofrettaged, it is subjected to a severe operating condition of pulsating internal pressure with 434 MPa. Three different levels of autofrettage such as 100, 75, and 50% were applied in the autofrettage process. The autofrettage level, denoted by % OS (overstraining) in this paper, is dened as the percentage of the wall thickness subjected to plastic deformation during the application of autofrettage loading [3]. If a smooth open-ended pressure vessel is subjected to internal pressure, Pi, then the tangential stress, s u , is given by the following Lame equation [6] " # P i a2 b2 1 su 2 11 2 b 2 a2 r where a and b are inside and outside radii, respectively. If a very high internal pressure is applied and removed during the autofrettage process, the plastic deformation penetrates into a radius, r and elastic recovery occurs. The tangential residual stress distribution, caused by the non-uniform elastic recovery throughout the thickness, can be obtained by assuming the Tresca yield criterion and elasticperfectly plastic material behavior [3]. # ( !" 2 a2 b2 r 2 b2 r 11 2 s u s ys 2 2 ln a b 2 a2 r 2b2 " 2 #) 2 r 1 b2 r 1 ; 2 ln 2 r 2b for a # r # r
Fig. 1. Autofrettaged thick-walled pressure vessel with an external groove.

autofrettage residual stresses in a partially autofrettaged thick-walled pressure vessel [7]. If a steady heat ow is assumed with temperatures of Ta and Tr imposed on r a and r r of the pressure vessel, respectively, then the temperature distribution of a smooth vessel becomes 8 T 2 Tr r > < Ta 2 a for a # r # r ln lnr=a a T 3 > : Tr for r # r # b Resulting from the temperature gradient given in Eq. (3) the thermal stress distribution in the tangential direction can be determined as ( ! Ta 2 Tr aE a2 b2 11 2 su 21 2 n lnr=a b2 2 a2 r " 2 # " 2 #) 4 r 2 b2 r r 1 b2 r 1 ; 2 ln 2 ln a r 2b2 2b2 for a # r # r ! Ta 2 Tr aE b2 11 2 su 21 2 n lnr=a r " 2 ( 2 )# r a2 r 2 b2 r ; 1 2 2 ln a 2b2 b 2 a2 2b2 for r # r # b where n is Poisson's ratio and a is the coefcient of thermal expansion. Comparing Eq. (2) with Eq. (4), it can be seen that the autofrettage residual stress is theoretically equal to the thermal stress, if the yield stress, s ys, is replaced by the following relationship:

s u s ys

b2 11 2 r

!"

r2 a2 1 2 2b2 b 2 a2

r2 2 b2 r 2 ln 2 a 2b

)# ;

for r # r # b where s ys is yield stress. Pu and Hussain suggested that an active thermal loading could produce elastic thermal stresses equivalent to the

s ys

Ta 2 Tr aE 21 2 n lnr=a

Therefore, the elastic thermal stress distributions would be equivalent to the autofrettage residual stress distributions if

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Fig. 2. Finite element model of pressure vessel.

temperatures of Ta and Tr were imposed on the surfaces of the pressure vessel at r a and r r , respectively. Since only the temperature gradient is required to determine the thermal stress, Tr can be assigned to zero. The temperature at the bore, Ta, can be determined from Eq. (5) as 407.7, 326.4, and 234.0 8C for 100, 75, and 50% OS, respectively. The mechanical properties of ASTM A723 pressure vessel steel are listed in Table 1. 2.2. External grooved pressure vessel In many practical cases, discontinuities are present in the pressure vessel as shown in Fig. 1, where a keyway groove is machined at the outside surface. This external groove causes a redistribution of residual stresses whose exact solu-

Fig. 3. Tangential residual stress contours due to 100% OS.

tion cannot be determined analytically. In this paper, an elasticplastic nite element stress analysis was performed to obtained the residual stress distributions in the pressure vessel. The shape of the external groove with a root radius of 1.5 mm was determined in previous research using CAE techniques, incorporating shape optimization and the nite element method [5]. Due to symmetry of the pressure vessel, only half of the whole geometry was used for the nite element analysis with appropriate boundary conditions, as shown in Fig. 2. The ansys nite element program was employed using eight-noded two-dimensional elements under plane strain conditions [8]. Multi-linear kinematic hardening and the von Mises yield criterion were also used. A continuous cyclic stressstrain curve of the pressure vessel steel was approximated by a piecewise linear curve, which was implemented for the multi-linear hardening used in the ansys program. In order to determine the residual stress distribution using the thermal loading analogy, Ta corresponding to each level of autofrettage for steady state heat ow was calculated from Eq. (5), assigning Tr to zero. Based on the thermal loading, a thermal analysis was performed to obtain the temperature distribution, which was used for the input data of the residual stress analysis. Fig. 3 shows the tangential residual stress contours of the pressure vessel subjected to autofrettage loading of 100% OS. A steep gradient in the vicinity of the groove root due to the stress concentration can be observed. Fig. 4 shows the residual stress distributions calculated from the elasticplastic nite element analysis along plane BB H (see Fig. 1) for a 100% OS. It can be seen that there are compressive tangential and longitudinal stresses at the bore region and the stresses become tensile through the thickness of the vessel. The tangential residual stress increased dramatically at the external groove root. Therefore, it is expected that the tensile tangential residual stress due to a combined loading of autofrettage and internal pressure must be a major inuencing factor in the fatigue life of the autofrettaged thick-walled pressure vessel containing an external groove. The compressive and tensile tangential residual stresses at the inside (locations A, B) and outside surfaces (locations A H , B H ) due to 100, 75 and 50% OS are plotted in Fig. 5. There is a tendency for the magnitude of the residual stresses to increase as the autofrettage level increases. The tensile residual stress at the groove root (B H ) was signicantly higher than that at the smooth outside surface (A H ). In order to verify the accuracy of the elasticplastic nite element analysis results, the tangential residual stress distributions along planes AA H and BB H for 50% OS are plotted in Fig. 6. The nite element solutions along AA H showed identical results to the theoretical solutions from Eq. (2) for a smooth pressure vessel. Along plane BB H , a redistributed residual stress due to the external groove can be observed near the outside surface in Fig. 6.

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Fig. 4. Residual stress distributions due to 100% OS.

Tangential stress distributions along the plane BB H due to the combined loading of autofrettage and internal pressure are plotted in Fig. 7. It should be noted that the tangential stress at the bore was almost zero, due to the superposition of the tensile and compressive stresses resulting from internal pressure and autofrettage loadings, respectively. At the external groove region, however, very high tensile stresses occurred due to the combination of autofrettage and internal pressure loadings.

Fig. 6. Tangential residual stress distributions across the planes AA H and BB H due to 50% OS.

from the nite element stress analysis such that the cyclic stresses near the groove roots for both the specimen and the pressure vessel were as close as possible. In Table 2, SN denotes the nominal stress based on the net section area at each fatigue load case: " 2 #) ( 2 r 2a2 r 2 b2 r 0 6 1 2 2 ln SN s ys b0 a b0 2 a2 2b2 0 where b0 is the reduced outside radius, subtracting the groove depth from the original outside radius. The maximum and minimum loads, Fmax, Fmin, in Table 2 simulate the internal pressure loading superimposed on the autofrettage loading and the autofrettage loading only, respectively. It can be noted in Table 2 that the amplitudes of the simulation load are identical for all loading cases, since the amplitude of repeated internal pressure is the same for all pressure vessels, regardless of the autofrettage level. However, the mean values of the simulation loads are different, depending on the level of autofrettage. Load-controlled simulation fatigue tests were conducted

3. Fatigue life evaluation of external grooved pressure vessel 3.1. Simulation fatigue test To evaluate the fatigue life of the pressure vessel, simulation fatigue tests were performed using C-shaped specimens taken from an actual pressure vessel, as shown in Fig. 8. Three different types of fatigue loading were applied to simulate different autofrettage levels of 100, 75 and 50% OS. The fatigue loads listed in Table 2 were determined

Fig. 5. Maximum tangential residual stresses at inside and outside surfaces for each level of autofrettage.

Fig. 7. Tangential stress distributions across the plane BB H due to autofrettage and internal pressure loadings.

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Fig. 8. C-shaped simulation fatigue test specimen.

by a hydraulic material testing system using a sine waveform with a frequency of 0.51 Hz. The number of cycles to a crack length of 2 mm is dened as the fatigue life of the specimen in this study. The fatigue life of 2 mm crack length was considered as a crack initiation life, since a crack size smaller than 2 mm was hardly observable in the fatigue test. Cracks were monitored at both sides of the specimens using two travelling microscopes. It was observed during the test that fatigue cracks formed at all four corners of the external groove root and grew to several millimetres through the wall thickness, prior to sudden fracture. A typical fractured specimen is shown in Fig. 9. The observed failure site coincided well with the location of maximum stress obtained from the elasticplastic nite element analysis (see Fig. 3). The experimental fatigue lives for the simulation specimens are shown in Fig. 10. As the level of autofrettage decreases, the fatigue life of the simulation specimen increases. A 64% increase in fatigue life for the autofrettage level of 50% OS was observed, compared with the fully autofrettaged case of 100% OS. This extended fatigue life at the low level of autofrettage was ascribed to the relatively low mean load, since the load amplitude in the fatigue tests was the same for all cases. This implies that the fatigue life of the pressure vessel is inuenced by the magnitude of the tensile residual stress, i.e. the tensile mean stress near the external groove induced by the autofrettage process. 3.2. Local strain analysis The local strain approach assesses the crack formation life of a component that has a critical region such as a
Table 2 Simulation fatigue loads OS (%) F (KN) Fmax 100 75 50 109.4 89.3 66.8 Fmin 61.9 41.8 19.4 SN (MPa) SN,max 1145.4 935.0 699.4 SN,min 648.1 437.6 203.1

Fig. 9. Photograph of fractured simulation specimen.

groove where fatigue cracks are formed due to the locally high strain, while the majority of the part is elastically strained by the cyclic loading [9]. In order to determine the local stresses and local strains at the critical region of the external groove, two different methods, namely elastic plastic nite element analysis and Neuber's rule, were employed in this study. In the elasticplastic nite element analysis, the highest stress occurs at the external groove root as previously mentioned. Therefore, the maximum equivalent stress (strain) estimated at the external groove root subjected to the combined loadings of internal pressure and autofrettage was considered as the maximum local stress (strain) of the pressure vessel. The ranges of cyclic stress and cyclic strain in the vicinity of the groove root of the pressure vessel subjected to the pulsating internal pressure were obtained by unloading the internal pressure using a stabilized hysteresis loop curve, which was modeled in the nite element analysis by doubling the size of the cyclic stressstrain curve. The cyclic stressstrain

Fig. 10. Experimental fatigue life of simulation specimen.

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Table 3 Local stresses and strains at the external groove root OS (%) Local strain, 1 Local stress, s (MPa) D1 /2 0.0026 0.0025 0.0025 Mean stress, s m (MPa) Ds /2 518.9 506.2 506.2 515.8 515.8 515.8 691.4 654.3 571.6 691.2 644.1 549.1

1 max
Neuber's rule 100 75 50 0.0224 0.0156 0.0094

s max
1210.4 1160.5 1077.9 1207.0 1159.9 1064.9

Elasticplastic nite element analysis 100 0.0225 0.0026 75 0.0166 0.0026 50 0.0093 0.0026

equation can be represented by the following equation:   H D1 Ds Ds 1=n 1 7 2 2E 2K H where K H and n H are cyclic strength coefcient and cyclic strain-hardening exponent, respectively. Another method of determining the local strain approximately is given by Neuber, who proposed the following equation [10]: Ds D1 K f2 DS De 8

where, Ds , D1 , DS, and De are the ranges of local stress, local strain, nominal stress, and nominal strain, respectively. The fatigue notch factor, Kf, is related to the elastic stress concentration factor, Kt by [11]: Kf 1 1 Kt 2 1 1 1 p=r 9

stresses and strains calculated from Neuber's rule showed fairly good agreement with those obtained directly from the elasticplastic nite element analysis. From the comparison of local cyclic strain and stress amplitudes in Table 3, the cyclic loading due to the pulsating internal pressure is essentially elastic, following the initial elasticplastic loading. It is well known that mean stress effects in low-cycle fatigue are signicant for the long life region, where cyclic elasticity is dominant [12]. Therefore, the mean stress produced by the autofrettage residual stress will have signicant effects on the fatigue life of a pressure vessel. 3.3. Fatigue life prediction The thick-walled pressure vessel in this study is subjected to a constant amplitude of cyclic internal pressure with a different magnitude of mean stress depending on the level of autofrettage. In order to evaluate the fatigue life of the externally grooved thick-walled pressure vessel, fatigue damage parameters considering mean stress effects were employed and the predicted fatigue life was compared with the simulated experimental fatigue life. As noted in the stress analysis and simulation fatigue test, the external groove is a critical region, where fatigue cracking occurs. Therefore, the fatigue life prediction can be made from the local strains at the groove root and the strainlife curve of the pressure vessel steel. The strain life relationship, namely Manson equation, can be modeled as [9] D1 sH f 2Nf b 1 1 Hf 2Nf c 2 E 11

Kt was determined from the linear elastic nite element stress analysis. In Eq. (9), r is the notch radius and p is a material constant, given by the following form [11]: p 0:02542068 MPa=s u 1:8 mm 10

By simultaneously solving the cyclic stressstrain equation of Eq. (7) or the hysteresis loop equation and Neuber's hyperbola of Eq. (8), the local stress and strain can be calculated. The local stresses and strains obtained from two approaches are listed in Table 3. The local
Table 4 Cyclic stressstrain and low cycle fatigue properties of ASTM A723 pressure vessel steel Cyclic strength coefcient, K H (MPa) Cyclic strength exponent, n H 0.2% offset cyclic yield strength, s H ys (MPa) Fatigue strength coefcient, s H f (MPa) Fatigue strength exponent, b Fatigue ductility coefcient, 1 H f Fatigue ductility exponent, c 1703.8 0.0813 1010 2715.5 2 0.1487 0.8195 2 0.9064

The low-cycle fatigue properties, s Hf ; b, 1 Hf ; and c are determined from the fully reversed strain-controlled tests. The low-cycle fatigue properties of the ASTM A723 pressure vessel steel, as listed in Table 4, were obtained [5]. In Eq. (11), no mean stress is taken into account. A fatigue damage parameter proposed by Morrow can adequately account for mean stress effects on fatigue life [13]. By modifying the elastic strainlife part of Eq. (11)

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,than the experimental life, i.e. non-conservative life prediction. Also, no effect of autofrettage level is predicted, as shown clearly in Fig. 11(b). In contrast to the non-conservative estimates from the Manson equation, the mean stress fatigue damage approaches from Morrow and SWT lead to over-conservative life predictions. 4. Conclusions Elasticplastic stress analysis using a nite element method was performed to nd the distribution of the residual stress in an autofrettaged thick-walled pressure vessel with an external groove subjected to a pulsating internal pressure. Fatigue life prediction of the pressure vessel based on the local strain approach was made, and compared with the experimental fatigue life. Conclusions are summarized as follows: 1. Tangential and longitudinal residual stresses produced by autofrettaging the pressure vessel were compressive in the bore region, and varied to tension in the outside surface of the pressure vessel. 2. Compressive tangential residual stress alleviated the operating tensile stress at the bore produced by the internal pressure loading. At the external groove region, however, a large tensile stress occurred due to the stress concentration of the combined loading of autofrettage and internal pressure. 3. Simulated fatigue tests using C-shaped specimen exhibited approximately 64% longer fatigue life for 50% OS than for 100% OS. The extended fatigue life was attributed to the decreased tensile autofrettage residual stress at the external groove root, showing the mean stress effects on the fatigue life of the pressure vessel. 4. Calculated local stresses and local strains obtained directly from the elasticplastic nite element analysis agreed very well with those from Neuber's rule. The predicted fatigue life of the pressure vessel based on the local strain approach correlated reasonably with the simulated experimental fatigue life within a factor of 34, depending on the autofrettage level and the fatigue damage approach.

Fig. 11. Predicted fatigue life versus experimental life.

using a mean stress, s m, the Morrow equation is given as D1 s H 2 sm f 2Nf b 1 1 Hf 2Nf c 2 E 12

The approach of SmithWatsonTopper (SWT) may also be used to account for mean stress effects by representing the low-cycle fatigue properties by [14]

s max 1a

s Hf 2 2Nf b 1 1 Hf 2Nf c E

13

where s max and 1 a are the maximum local stress and the local strain amplitude. The local stresses and local strains estimated by both elasticplastic nite element analysis and Neuber's rule were used in the three damage Eqs. (11)(13) to give fatigue life predictions for the pressure vessel. The predicted fatigue lives are compared with the experimental fatigue lives of simulation specimen was shown in Fig. 11. Reasonable agreement between the predicted and experimental lives can be found within factors of 34. The predicted life from both Neuber's rule and elasticplastic stress analysis was very similar. Fatigue damage from the Manson equation showed better correlation than the approaches allowing for mean stress, but predicted longer fatigue life

Acknowledgements This work is partially funded by a basic research program (1999) of Electrical Engineering and Science Research Institute and S. Koh expresses special thanks to EESRI for the nancial support. References
[1] Davidson TE, Kendall DP. In: Pugh HLlD, editor. The mechanical behavior of materials under pressure. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1970.

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S.-I. Lee, S.-K. Koh / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 79 (2002) 119126 [8] Kohnke P. ansys theory manual. Canonsburg: ANSYS Inc, 2000. [9] Stephens RI, Fatemi A, Stephens RR, Fuchs HO. Metal fatigue in engineering. New York: Wiley, 2001. [10] Neuber H. Theory of stress concentration for shear-strained prismatic bodies with arbitrary nonlinear stressstrain law. J Appl Mech 1961:54450. [11] Peterson RE. In: Sines G, editor. Notch sensitivity in metal fatigue, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959. p. 293306. [12] Koh SK, Stephens RI. Mean stress effects on the low cycle fatigue for high strength steel. Fatigue Fracture Engng Mater Struct 1991;14(4):41328. [13] Morrow J. Fatigue design handbook. Warrendale: Society of Automotive Engineers, 1968. p. 219. [14] Smith KN, Watson P, Topper TM. A stressstrain function for the fatigue of metals. J Mater 1970;5(4):76778.

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