A new approach to ductile tearing assessment of pipelines under large-scale yielding

In this paper we focus on the issue of ductile tearing assessment for cases with global plasticity, relevant for example to strain-based design of pipelines. A proposal for a set of simplified strain-based driving force equations is used as a basis for calculation of ductile tearing. We compare the traditional approach using the tangency criterion to predict unstable tearing, with a new alternative approach for ductile tearing calculations. A criterion to determine the CTOD at maximum load carrying capacity in the crack ligament is proposed, and used as the failure criterion in the new approach. Compared to numerical reference simulations, the tangency criterion predicts conservative results with regard to the strain capacity. The new approach yields results in better agreement with the reference numerical simulations.