CORROSION FATIGUE MECHANISMS AND FRACTURE MECHANICS BASED MODELLING FOR SUBSEA PIPELINE STEELS

Subsea structures such as pipelines are vulnerable to environment-assisted crackings (EACs). As a type of EAC, corrosion fatigue (CF) is almost inevitable. For such a process, stress corrosion (SC) and hydrogen-assisted cracking (HAC) are the two mainly driving mechanisms. And it was further pointed out that slip dissolution (SD) and hydrogen embrittlement (HE) should be responsible for SC and HAC respectively. Based on such a fact, a two-component physical model for estimating the CF crack propagation rate was proposed. The proposed model was built in a frame of fracture mechanics integrated with a dissolution model for C-Mn steel and a newly established model by the authors accounting for the influence from HE upon crack propagation. The overall CF crack propagation rate is the aggregate of the two rates predicted by the two sub-individual models, and then the crack propagation time is calculated accordingly. The model has been proven to be capable of capturing the features of HE influenced fatigue cracking behaviour as well as taking mechanical factors such as the loading frequency and stress ratio into account by comparison with the experimental data of X42 and X65 pipeline steels.