Analysis of crack occurs under unsteady pressure and temperature in a natural gas facility by applying FGM

Cracking can lead to unexpected sudden failure of normally ductile metals subjected to a tensile stress, especially at elevated temperature. This article is raised to study the application of a composite material instead of the traditional carbon steel material used in the natural gas transmission pipeline because the cracks occurs in the pipeline initiate at its internal surface which is subjected to internal high fluctuated pressure and unsteady temperature according to actual operation conditions. Functionally graded material (FGM) is proposed to benefit from the ceramics durability and its surface hardness against erosion. FGM properties are graded at the radial direction. Finite element method (FEM) is applied and solved by ABAQUS software including FORTRAN subroutines adapted for this case of study. The stress intensity factor (SIF), temperatures and stresses are discussed to obtain the optimum FGM configuration under the actual conditions of pressure and temperature. Thermoelastic analysis of a plane strain model is adopted to study SIF and material response at various crack depths.