Reliability of the conventional approach for stress/fatigue analysis of pitting corroded pipelines – Development of a safer approach

The remaining strength and the fatigue life of externally pitted corroded metallic pipeline are often assessed using an idealization to model the pit morphology, typically semi-ellipsoidal and cuboidal. Such idealized pit geometries are shown herein to underestimate Stress Concentration Factors (SCFs). By implication this leads to significant overestimates of fatigue life for pitting corroded pipes under sustained cyclic loading which could be...