Improved net-section criterion solution for pipes with off-centered local wall thinning defects

•Off-centered angle affects the limit load of pipe with local wall thinning greatly.•The improved NSC solution considers both off-centered angle and axial length.•The prediction accuracy of the improved NSC solution is significantly improved.

In this paper, based on the finite element (FE) simulation and the analytical net-section criterion (NSC) solution, the influences of the off-centered angle and the dimension of local wall thinning (LWT) on limit loads of pipes with LWT are systematically investigated. It is interesting that the off-centered angle commonly affects the limit load for all dimensions of LWT. Moreover, the axial length of LWT also plays an important role in the load capacity, which cannot be considered in the analytical NSC solution. In order to improve the prediction accuracy of the NSC analytical solution of pipes with the off-centered LWT, the effects of the off-centered angle and the axial length are considered together in the establishment of the improved NSC solution. It is confirmed by the statistical analysis that the prediction accuracy of the NSC solution can be significantly improved by addressing the effects of two factors together.