Apportion of Charpy energy in API 5L grade X70 pipeline steel

Conventional Charpy based failure models for gas transportation pipelines recommend the minimum fracture energy for safe performance of these structures. In recent years however, full-scale burst experiments have shown that such models cannot fully guarantee the safety of higher grade pipeline steels. One possible reason for this discrepancy, which is further investigated in this research, is that Charpy energy inherently contains both fracture and non-fracture related energy. To separate this, energy partitioning analysis was used. First, the overall fracture energy of X70 steel is measured experimentally on an instrumented Charpy rig. Next, the measured energy is divided into fracture initiation and propagation parts using load-displacement data. It appeared from test results that a significant amount of energy was consumed in non-fracture related processes. From this, correction factors were suggested for possible use in current industry failure models. Interestingly, these corrections factors agreed well with those reported from full-thickness burst tests for tough pipeline steels.