SPE 89571 An Investigation of the Effects of the Physical Properties of Coiled Tubing on Fatigue Modeling

S.M. Tipton, U. of Tulsa, F.R. Behenna, CTES, L.P./Varco Intl., SPE, J.R. Martin, Quality Tubing Inc., SPE

Copyright 2004, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc. This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE/ICoTA Coiled Tubing Conference and Exhibition held in Houston, Texas, U.S.A., 2324 March 2004. This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE Program Committee following review of information contained in a proposal submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper, as presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Papers presented at SPE meetings are subject to publication review by Editorial Committees of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper for commercial purposes without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to a proposal of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The proposal must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper was presented. Write Librarian, SPE, P.O. Box 833836, Richardson, TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435.

Abstract A computerized database was compiled with results from over 3000 CT fatigue and mechanical tests conducted over a 10 year period. The database contains detailed information about tensile properties (yield and ultimate strengths) for individual samples that were tested to failure under constant internal pressure with specialized CT fatigue testing fixtures. This paper presents a survey of those data to assess the variability in the mechanical properties within a specific CT material grade and to investigate the effect of this variation on CT fatigue behavior. Introduction The growth of the coiled tubing industry can be partially attributed to the successful development of analytical techniques for modeling the ultra-low cycle fatigue behavior exhibited by CT under routine use [1-5]. Analytical fatigue life prediction models for CT are semi-empirically formulated for specific material grades. Parameters are computed based on constant pressure fatigue data generated on specialized testing fixtures using samples made from a specific CT material grade. Models developed using this approach are focused on the fatigue properties of the material without regard to the conventional tensile properties (e.g., yield and ultimate strength) obtained from monotonic tensile testing. More advanced models [1,3], also utilize uniaxial strain-controlled low-cycle fatigue test data [6] but such data are also generated from a specific sample of the same alloy, and do not explicitly make use of the tensile properties for that alloy. The philosophy underlying this approach is that a particular material grade has consistent fatigue properties and variation within the grade is a second order effect. However, mechanical properties for any alloy can vary within that particular alloy, from one heat of material to the

next. Coiled tubing material is no different [7]. Nominal yield strengths for CT are minimum values and actual values typically exceed nominal values, sometimes considerably. The variability in tensile properties is examined in this paper from a database of over 3000 samples compiled over a 10 year period. This database includes standard, commercial grades, and unusual experimental grades, including special tests on samples with welds, defects, prior field service and other anomalies. In this paper, only data from commercial grades are presented. Fatigue testing of coiled tubing (and all other engineering) materials is subject to scatter. Two nominally identical samples, taken from the same string, tested on the same machine by the same operator, on the same day, under identical conditions can fail in a significantly DIFFERENT number of cycles. When utilizing data taken from different heats over a long time period, even more variation can occur. Another goal of this paper is to present an assessment of how variation in fatigue behavior could be caused by variation in mechanical strength, as reflected in the tensile properties. Since relations have been observed between monotonic tensile properties with fatigue properties in engineering alloys, it is possible that the tensile properties could be used to refine coiled tubing fatigue life prediction routines to account for variations and reduce scatter. The potential for this is also explored. It should be noted that the fatigue testing program that generated the data presented in this paper was not conducted for purposes of developing a fatigue life prediction model. The testing was conducted as a product development tool, in order to gain an understanding of the differences in fatigue behavior between different material grades. The testing is also conducted routinely for purposes of quality control. Mechanical Property Variation The database used to conduct this analysis consists of over 3000 data points, generated over a 10 year period. The data were collected from a wide range of samples taken from strings made from common CT alloys as well as from more exotic alloys. The majority of the samples were taken from commercial CT material grades. Of those, over 140 distinct samples were identified (i.e., samples of a specific size and material grade, from a particular product run that resulted in a specific yield and ultimate strength) for which the actual yield strength, Sy,act and ultimate strength, Su, were recorded. A histogram of all those cases is presented in Fig. 1, showing the

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SPE 89571

distribution of actual yield strength, relative to nominal strength, Snom.

25

1.5 in. and a wall thickness of 0.134 in., tested over a 48 bending radius. For this set of tests, there were 3-5 samples tested at each of 14 different internal pressure levels.
120 ksi, 1.5" x 0.134" x 48"R 500 450

20

Number of Occurrences

15

400

Cycles to Failure
75 00 25 50 75 00 25 50 75 00 25 50 75 00 25 50 50 0.8 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 75

350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6

10

0
0.8

Sy,act /Sy,nom
Fig. 1 Distribution of actual yield strengths, relative to nominal yield strengths for all material grades.

h /Sy,act
Fig. 3 Life versus hoop stress (normalized by the actual yield strength) for a 120 ksi alloy with a diameter of 1.5 and a wall thickness of 0.134 over a 48 bending radius.

Figure 1 shows that about 60% of all the samples lie just above the nominal (minimum) yield, within the range from 1 to 1.1 times Sy,nom. About 10% of the samples in this database lie below the nominal yield and the remaining 30% have yield strengths greater than 10% of the nominal. The distribution of strengths is examined further in Fig. 2, where the ratio of the ultimate to actual yield strengths is plotted versus the actual yield strength.
1.2 1.18 1.16 1.14 1200 1000 900 800 700

Su /Sy,act

1.12 1.1

Figure 3 is fairly typical of such data. As pressure increases from zero, life slightly increases, up to a pressure that corresponds to a hoop stress, h, of about 10% of the yield strength. Beyond this point, increasing pressure decreases the fatigue life. Another typical observation from Fig. 1 is that there appears to be significantly greater scatter in the data for lower pressure tests, while scatter decreases as pressure increases. Although this is true in terms of absolute number of cycles, when normalized by the mean number of cycles to failure at each pressure level, Fig. 4 shows that variability relative to the mean is actually more uniform over the entire hoop stress regime.
120 ksi, 1.5" x 0.134" x 48"R 1.3

1.08
Cycles to Failure / Mean Cycles to Failure

1.06 1.04 1.02 1 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150

1.2

1.1

Sy,act (ksi)
Fig. 2 Ratio of the amount the ultimate strength exceeds the yield strength, versus the actual yield strength.

0.9

0.8

0.7

This plot shows how the actual yield strengths for individual grades are distributed above their nominal values. It also shows a strong correlation between the diminishing margin between the yield and ultimate strengths with increasing yield strength. Considerable work has been done to assure the high strength alloys possess good fracture toughness and ductility [8]. Fatigue Life Variation Before exploring how fatigue life varies with tensile properties, it is worthwhile to characterize the variation of fatigue life within a particular heat of material. Figure 3 shows a plot of life versus hoop stress caused by internal pressure for samples with Snom = 120 ksi, (Sy,act = 136.1 ksi) a diameter of

0.6 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6

h /Sy,act
Fig. 4 From the data in Fig. 3, lives at each pressure level are normalized by the mean life at that pressure level.

A similar trend is shown in Figs. 5 and 6 for data from a set of 2.375 x 0.134 samples made from identical 900 ksi material (with an actual yield of 93.5 ksi), and tested over a 72 bending radius.

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SPE 89571

90 ksi, 2.375" x 0.134" x 72"R 500 450 400 600 800 700

90 ksi - 1.5" Dia. x 48"R

t = 0.125", Sy,act = 93.25 ksi t = 0.109", Sy,act = 95.75 ksi

Cycles to Failure

350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8

Cycles to Failure

500 400 300 200 100 0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7

h /Sy,act
Fig. 5 - Life versus hoop stress (normalized by the actual yield strength) for a 90 ksi alloy with a diameter of 2.375 and a wall thickness of 0.134 over a 72 bending radius.
90 ksi, 2.375" x 0.134" x 72"R 1.3 1.6 Cycles to Failure / Mean Cycles to Failure 1.5 1.4 1.3 1.2 1.1 1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0 0.1 0.2

h /Sy,act
Fig. 7 - Life versus hoop stress (normalized by the actual yield strength) for two 90 ksi alloys, each with a diameter of 1.5 and wall thicknesses of 0.125 and 0.109, over a 48 bending radius.
90 ksi - 1.5" Dia. x 48"R

Cycles to Failure / Mean Cycles to Failure

1.2

t = 0.125", Sy,act = 93.25 ksi t = 0.109", Sy,act = 95.75 ksi

1.1

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

h /Sy,act
Fig. 6 - From the data in Fig. 5, lives at each pressure level are normalized by the mean life at that pressure level.

h /Sy,act
Fig. 8 - From the data in Fig. 7, lives at each pressure level are normalized by the mean life at that pressure level.

It should be noted that fewer data were taken in the low pressure region, and therefore the low pressure life increase with increasing pressure is not evident. Also, the three data points taken at the highest pressure level (9000 psi) in Figs. 5 and 6 resulted in an identical result: 9 cycles to failure. Obviously, these three points exhibited no scatter. With the exception of that one pressure level, the trend of fairly uniform scatter in terms of normalized life is apparent again. This trend is repeated for two different 90 ksi tubing sizes in Figs. 7 and 8, and for additional sets in the next section.

Effect of Material Variation on Fatigue Life From the 3000+ data points, numerous sets of data were analyzed in an attempt to identify an influence of mechanical properties on fatigue behavior within a particular material grade. Several of those analyses are presented here. Figure 9 presents life versus hoop stress data for the 100 ksi material grade generated with 1.25 in. x 0.109 in. samples tested over a 48 bending radius. For this tubing size and nominal grade, there are data from 7 different heats with actual yield strengths ranging from 103.75 ksi to 126.25 ksi., although the vast majority of the data were taken from samples with a yield strength of 115.8 ksi. Note that using the same nominal yield strength to normalize the hoop stress (in Fig. 9) is identical to plotting these lives versus internal pressure, since all samples have the same diameter and wall thickness, and the same nominal yield.

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SPE 89571

100 ksi - 1.25" x 0.109" x 48"R 800 Sy=103.75 700 600 Sy=104.5 Sy=108.4 Sy-115.8 Sy=117.75 400 300 200 100 0 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 Sy=126.25 Sy=108.75 600 700

120 ksi, 1.5" x 0.156" x 48"R Sy,nom = 130.05 Sy,nom = 144.25

Cycles to Failure

500

Cycles to Failure

500

400

300

200

100

0 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5

h /Snom
Fig. 9 Life versus hoop stress, normalized by nominal yield strength for 1.25 x 0.109 100 ksi tubing.

h /Snom
Fig. 11 - Life versus hoop stress, normalized by nominal yield strength for 1.5 x 0.156 120 ksi tubing.
120 ksi, 1.5" x 0.156" x 48"R 700 Sy,act = 130.05 ksi Sy,act = 144.25 ksi

Cycles to Failure

In Fig. 10 the same data are plotted with pressures normalized this time by the ratio of hoop stress with the actual yield strengths. This distinction has a negligible influence on the data taken at hoop stresses below 25% of the yield strength. However, the two highest pressure tests from the Sy,act = 108.4 ksi samples are moved more into line with the trend exhibited by the data from the more numerous Sy,act = 117.75 ksi samples.
100 ksi - 1.25" x 0.109" x 48"R 800 Sy=103.75 700 600 Sy=104.5 Sy=108.4 Sy=108.75 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 Sy-115.8 Sy=117.75 Sy=126.25

600

500

400

300

200

100

Cycles to Failure

0 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5

h /Sy,act
Fig. 12 - Life versus hoop stress, normalized by actual yield strength for 1.5 x 0.156 120 ksi tubing.

h /Sy,act
Fig. 10 - Life versus hoop stress, normalized by actual yield strength for 1.25 x 0.109 100 ksi tubing.

For comparison, the two sets of life data in Figs. 11 and 12 are normalized by the mean life at each pressure level and presented in Fig. 13. Similar to the results from Figs. 4, 6 and 8, the scatter is more uniform over the entire life regime than is apparent from the absolute life data in Figs. 1l or 12.
120 ksi, 1.5" x 0.156" x 48"R 1.3 Cycles to Failure/Average Cycles to Failure Sy=130.05 1.2 Sy=144.25

The improved correlation from Fig. 9 to Fig. 10 gained by normalizing with Sy,act is minimal. Other sets of data were also able to show only weak improvement. Data from 100 ksi material with two different actual yield strengths are shown in Figs. 11-13 for 1.5 x 0.156 samples, tested over a 48 radius of curvature. In Figs. 11 and 12 the hoop stresses are normalized as before, using Snom and Sy,act, respectively. Again, using Sy,act causes a slight improvement in correlation between the two materials for higher pressure data (hoop stresses above 25% of the yield strength), but lower pressure correlation is not improved significantly.

1.1

0.9

0.8

0.7 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5

h /Sy,act
Fig. 13 - From the data in Fig. 12, lives at each pressure level are normalized by the mean life at each pressure level.

Since the data in Figs. 9-13 show only a weak influence of mechanical property variation on fatigue strength, additional sets were searched, as shown in Figs. 14-21. These figures

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SPE 89571

Cycles to Failure

focus on cases where samples of differing actual yield strength were fabricated from the same grade of material with identical dimensions, and tested under identical conditions (pressure and bending radius). For example, Fig. 14 shows test results from identical tests run on 6 separate 1.5 x 0.134 samples made from 80 ksi tubing, at 3 different yield strengths. These tests are all run at 3000 psi (causing a hoop stress roughly equal to 16% of the yield strength).
80 ksi, 1.5" x 0.134" x 48" @ 3000 psi 700

100 ksi, 1.75" x 0.236" x 72" @ 10,000 psi 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0
110 112 114 116 118 120 122 124 126 128

600

Cycles to Failure

500

400

y,act (ksi)
Fig. 17 - Fatigue results for different heats of 100 ksi material.

300 80 ksi, 1.5" x 0.095" x 48" @ 3000 psi 200 350 100 300 0 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

Cycles to Failure

250

Sy,act (ksi)
Fig. 14 - Fatigue results for different heats of 80 ksi material.

200

150

100

80 ksi, 1.5" x 0.109" x 48" @ 3000 psi 500 450 0 400 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 50

Cycles to Failure

350 300 250

Sy,act (ksi)
Fig. 18 - Fatigue results for different heats of 80 ksi material.
90 ksi, 1.75" x 0.156" x 72" @ 5000 psi

200 150 100 50

700

600

Cycles to Failure

500

0 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

400

Sy,act (ksi)
Fig. 15 Fatigue results for different heats of 80 ksi material.

300

200

70 ksi, 1.5" x 0.109" x 48" @ 3000 psi 250

100

94 200

96

98

100

102

104

106

108

110

112

114

116

Sy,act (ksi)
Fig. 19 - Fatigue results for different heats of 90 ksi material.

Cycles to Failure

150

100

50

0 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

Sy,act (ksi)
Fig. 16 Fatigue results for different heats of 70 ksi material.

Figure 14 shows the life to increase considerably with increasing actual yield strength, from an average of 343 to 570 cycles (an increase of 66%) from the lowest to the highest values of actual yield. The next three figures (15-17) show a similar trend towards higher strengths causing longer fatigue lives. Figures 15-17 are for 80, 70 and 100 ksi alloys, and show life increases of about 33%, 20% and 20%, respectively. However, the next four figures (18-21) do not show this correlation over similar strength ranges.

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SPE 89571

100 ksi, 1.5" x 0.109" x 48" @ 3000 psi 450 400 350

Cycles to Failure

300 250 200 150 100 50 0 104

22 for hoop stresses above 50% of the yield strength, it should be noted that only about 6% of all the tests presented in Fig. 22 were conducted at pressures causing h/Sy,act ratios greater than 0.5. More high pressure data points are required before scatter can be assessed reliably across the entire pressure regime.
ALL Data 2.5

Cycles to Failure / Mean Cycles to Failure

1.5

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

Sy,act (ksi)
Fig. 20 - Fatigue results for different heats of 100 ksi material.
80 ksi 1.5" x 0.102" x 48" @ 4000 psi
300

0.5

0
250

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

h /Sy,act
Fig. 22 Experimental lives at each pressure level, normalized by the mean life at each pressure level for all cases in the database with 3 or more replications.
Average: 185 cycles Standard Deviation: 23 cycles Average: 188 cycles Standard Deviation: 21.5 cycles

Cycles to Failure

200

150

100

50

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

Fig. 23 presents the distribution of hoop stresses caused by the internal pressures at which tests were conducted in the current database. If data were being developed strictly for purposes of developing fatigue life prediction modeling, a more uniform or even inverted distribution would be more useful.
35.0%

Sy,act (ksi)
Percentage of Tests Conducted

Fig. 21 - Fatigue results for two heats of 80 ksi material.

30.0%

Although the survey presented here is not comprehensive, other plots from this database revealed similar, contradictory results from one case to the next. Summary and Conclusions Fatigue test data are inherently subject to scatter. For carefully controlled CT data sets conducted on identical samples, when lives are plotted versus pressure or normalized hoop stress, the scatter in fatigue lives is appears to be greater for low pressure tests and less for high pressure tests. However, it is shown in this paper that when lives generated at a particular pressure are normalized by the average life at that pressure, the variation over the entire life regime is more uniform than previously believed. To examine scatter more comprehensively, the variation in life is plotted versus hoop stress normalized by Sy,act for the entire database in Fig. 22. This plot was generated by identifying every case for which 3 or more identical samples were tested under identical loading conditions (the same pressure and bending radius). The mean life was computed for each condition and used to normalize the individual lives. In total, this represents about 1500 individual tests, and about 312 distinct loading conditions. The standard deviation for all the points about the mean of 1.0 was 0.131 (13.1%). The average fluctuation ranged from +10% above 1.0 to about -9% below 1.0, over the entire range of hoop stress to yield strength. Although the scatter does appear to diminish in Fig.

25.0%

20.0%

15.0%

10.0%

5.0%

0.0% 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8

h /Sy,act
Fig. 23 Distribution of pressures at which tests were conducted in the current database.

Note that Fig. 22 is the best case scenario in terms of assessing variation in CT fatigue data. The variability is only considered relative to identical material, dimension and loading conditions. Comparisons between separate sets of data where everything is identical except the material heat (such as the two cases plotted in Figs. 11 and 12) show additional variation that cannot be accounted for in this study. It is shown in this paper that actual tensile properties (e.g., the actual yield strength) may provide improvements in correlating fatigue data taken from separate heats of material in the high pressure regime, but improvements are less apparent in the low pressure regime. This leads to the expectation that only a weak improvement in life prediction

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SPE 89571

methodology could be expected by using the actual CT mechanical properties, relative to current methods that do not use the monotonic yield or tensile strengths. Another way to assess the influence of tensile properties on fatigue is to compare life results from samples of identical material grade and dimensions, tested under identical conditions (Figs. 14-21), such that only the actual tensile properties differ from test to test. From these surveys, some cases showed an increase in life with increasing yield strength, while others showed no discernable influence, or a decrease in strength. In fact, it is well known that under strain-controlled lowcycle fatigue loading, higher strength materials can fail sooner than lower strength alloys for a particular strain range [9]. Lower strength alloys are more ductile and can accommodate large cyclic plastic strain fluctuations whereas higher strength alloys cannot. In coiled tubing, this tendency has been observed for low pressure tests, and in axial coupon tests [6]. However, for higher pressure tests, the tendency for increasing strength to reduce ballooning and increase life is well known. Therefore it is likely that the influence of tensile properties on fatigue resistance is pressure dependent. It is noted here again that the test results populating the current database were not conducted explicitly for the development fatigue life prediction algorithms. Therefore, no attempt was made to thoroughly and uniformly vary the parameters that most strongly influence fatigue (e.g., bending strain range, internal pressure, wall thickness, and mechanical properties). Testing was conducted for other reasons such as product development or quality control. A more comprehensive study could likely reveal more direct correlations between tensile and fatigue properties. A test matrix to vary material and loading parameters uniformly over the entire range of loading (pressure and bending strain range) could be devised to investigate this influence more comprehensively.

References 1. Tipton, S.M., Multiaxial Plasticity and Fatigue Life Prediction in Coiled Tubing," Fatigue Lifetime Predictive Techniques, 3rd Volume, ASTM STP 1292, M.R. Mitchell and R.W. Landgraf, Eds., American Society for Testing and Materials, Philadelphia, 1995, pp. 283-304. 2. Avakov, V.A. and Martin, J.R., Large Coiled Tubing Fatigue Life, paper SPE 38407 presented at the 1997 SPE/ICoTA North American Coiled Tubing Roundtable, Montgomery, TX, Apr. 1-3. 3. Tipton, S.M., Internal Document. The Achilles Fatigue Model, CTES L.P. User Technical Note, May 1999. 4. Headrick, D.C. and Rosine, R.S., Full-Scale Coiled Tubing Fatigue Tests With Tubing Pressures to 15,000 psi, paper SPE 54482 presented at the 1999 SPE/ICoTA Coiled Tubing Roundtable, Houston, TX, May 25, 26. 5. Behenna, F.R, et al, Field Validation of a Coiled Tubing Fatigue Model, SPE paper 81726 presented at the SPE/ICoTA Coiled Tubing Conference, Houston, Texas, U.S.A., 8-9 April 2003. 6. Tipton, S.M., Low-Cycle Fatigue Testing of Tubular Material using Non-Standard Specimens, Effects of Product Quality and Design Criteria on Structural Integrity, ASTM STP 1337, R. C. Rice and D. E. Tritsch, Eds., American Society for Testing and Materials, 1998. 7. McCoy, T., Avakov, V.A., Rosine, R.S., and Martin, J.R., Coiled Tubing String Longitudinal Properties, paper SPE 54485 presented at the 1999 SPE/ICoTA Coiled Tubing Roundtable, Houston, TX, May 25, 26. 8. Andersen, J.N., Rosine, R.S., Martin, J.R., Operational Issues Related to 120 KSI YS Tubing, SPE paper 74818 presented at the SPE/ICoTA Coiled Tubing Conference, Houston, Texas, ., 9-10 April 2002. 9. Stephens, R.I., Fatemi, A., Stephens, R.R., and Fuchs, H.O., Metal Fatigue in Engineering, 2nd Ed., Wiley and Sons, 2000.

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