• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.11
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• pp.1021-1033
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• 2017

In this study, an optimum process to improve structural integrity was established by investigating effect of the process variables on fatigue lifetime of steel-sleeve repair welds in buried gas pipeline. Residual stresses in the repair welds were derived through sequentially-coupled temperature-stress analysis using ABAQUS, which is a commercial finite element analysis program. In addition, variations of operating stresses were derived by finite element linear elastic stress analysis. Fatigue lifetimes of the steel-sleeve repair welds were evaluated by substituting the derived weld residual stresses and operating stress variations into the structural stress/fracture mechanics approach as input. Parametric study using finite element analysis and fatigue assessment for various repair welding process variables were carried out to investigate the effects of the process variables on the fatigue lifetime. Finally, based on the effects of the process variables on the fatigue lifetime, an optimal process to minimize the welding time and economic costs and to improve the fatigue lifetimes was derived.