Experimental investigation of residual ultimate strength of damaged metallic pipelines

The ultimate strength of metallic pipelines will be inevitably affected when they have suffered from structural damage. The present experiments aim to investigate the residual ultimate bending strength of metallic pipes with structural damage based on large-scale pipe specimens. Artificial damage such as dent, metal loss, crack and combinations thereof is introduced on the pipe surface in advance. The entire test project consists of 34 seamless pipes with a relative low Diameter-to-thickness (D=t) ratio around 21.3, among which four intact specimens and thirty damaged specimens have been carried out for mutual comparison. Extensive measurements on structural damage and pipe geometries including wall thickness and outer diameter are performed. The material properties are measured by tensile tests with specimens from both pipe longitudinal and hoop direction. The four-point bending tests are performed to investigate the structural behaviors of metallic pipes. The bending strength associating with failure mode of each specimen is documented extensively, and the bending moment-curvature curves are presented and discussed. The fundamental research of experiments on damaged pipes in the present paper will be deployed for the following numerical and analytical research in the near future.