European Journal of Scientific Research

ISSN 1450-216X Vol.40 No.4 (2010), pp.557-568

EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2010
http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr.htm

Finite Element Analysis of the In-service-Welding of T Joint

Pipe Connections
Farid Vakili-Tahami
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
E-mail: f_vakili@tabrizu.ac.ir
Tel: 0098(0)411-3392463; Fax: 0098(0)411-3354153
Mohammad Zehsaz
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
E-mail: zehsaz@tabrizu.ac.ir
Tel: 0098(0)411-3392463; Fax: 0098(0)411-3354153
Mohammad-Ali Saeimi-Sadigh
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
E-mail: moa_saemi@yahoo.com
Tel: 0098(0)411-3392463; Fax: 0098(0)411-3354153
Seyedreyhani
Tabriz Refinery Company, Tabriz, Iran
E-mail: seyedreyhani @yahoo.com
Tel: 0098(0)411-4293277
Abstract
In this paper the effects of two major parameters (a) main pipe thickness; and (b)
the amount of heat input (electrode diameter) have been investigated on the burn-through
risks during the in-service welding of an AISI-316 pipe branch connection on a steam
pipeline at full line pressure to perform hot tapping. A 3D Finite Element (FE) based
thermo-mechanical analysis has been carried out to model the in-service welding. To assess
the burn-through risks, current recommendations only rely on the observation of the main
pipe inner wall surface temperature. However, this criterion does not take into account the
effect of mechanical stresses due to the inline pressure. In this study, the thermomechanical stresses and temperature distribution along the main-pipe wall-thickness have
been obtained and values of the effective stress have been compared against the
temperature dependent yield stress of the material. The results show that this is a more
accurate criterion to check the burn-through risks. It has been shown that thickness of the
main pipe has a major role in the occurrence of burn-through. By increasing the pipe
thickness, heat wave from the weld-pool does not penetrate in the pipe thickness and
therefore the risk of burn-through reduces significantly. In addition, the results show that
the amount of heat input which is related to the electrode diameter plays a major role in
burn-through.
Keywords: In-service Welding, Burn-Through, Finite Element Analysis, AISI-316

Finite Element Analysis of the In-service-Welding of T Joint Pipe Connections

558

1. Introduction
Nowadays in-service welding of branch connections on pipelines while they are operating at full linepressure is becoming a necessity in industrial plants. In addition, branch connections to perform hottapping or repairing defects in pipelines are becoming common industrial problems. Although, welding
at full line pressure is a preferred technique, but it requires careful selection of the welding parameters;
otherwise burn-through may cause severe human damages or financial losses. Therefore, the
mechanism of burn-through or failure during in-service welding and its affecting parameters need to be
examined carefully. To carry out these operations safely, weld parameters must be selected so that heat
inputs remain low enough to avoid burn-through yet not so low that hot cracking occurs (API, 1995).
When the heat input is too low, hot cracking of the heat-affected zone (HAZ) may occur (Oddy, et al.,
1999). On the other hand, when the amount of heat input is high, although the main pipe wall may not
melt through completely, but it could soften locally, leak or rupture, which is called burn-through.
According to the description of the American Petroleum Institute (API) burn-through will occur
if the un-melted area beneath the weld pool can no longer contain the pressure within the pipe. Figure 1
shows the type of wall failure (burn-through) due to the in-service welding. In industry, current
practice is to follow empirical guidelines to prevent burn-through which imply that burn-through does
not occur as long as the temperature level on the inside surface never exceeds a critical level of 980C
(API, 1995). While the empirical guidelines highlight the principal role of the welding heat input, they
neglect the influence of the existing thermal stresses or the mechanical stresses due to the internal
pressure. Rupture of the main pipe can occur even when the fusion zone only penetrates partially
through the main-pipe wall. This is mostly because of the internal pressure and existing thermal or
mechanical stresses. Series of experiments have been carried out with short welds on water filled,
pressurised vessels. In these tests, slight thinning of the vessel wall has been observed with a fusion
zone penetration of only 1/3 of the main pipe wall-thickness (Oddy, et al., 1999). In another case,
partial rupture and incipient failure has been observed with a penetration of fusion zone in half of the
wall thickness (Oddy, et al., 1999).
Figure 1: Type of pipe or canal-wall failure (burn-through) during to the "in-service" welding

Due to the enormous expenses of experimental tests, there is a general trend to develop and use
numerical methods to model welding processes and also the strength or mechanical behaviour of the
weldments. These models can be divided in three different fields: a) models which study the welding
process itself; b) models which study the mechanical behaviour of the weldments; and c) models which
study the mechanical behaviour of the surrounding parts during the welding process. First and second
fields have been the subject of many research works in the past decades. However, despite its
importance, the third field or burn-through analysis have been the subject of a few works. The
following paragraphs provide a brief review of these research works.

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Mohammad Zehsaz, Farid Vakili-Tahami, Mohammad-Ali Saeimi-Sadigh and Seyedreyhani

In 1930, an analytical method using Fourier's heat transfer equation has been developed to
study the temperature distribution for the butt-welded infinite plates (Parmar, 2002). In this model, the
governing heat transfer equations have been solved in quasi-stationary condition. Due to the
simplifying assumptions in this model, the results were significantly different from those obtained
using experimental observations. To overcome these shortcomings and to allow for the complicated
boundary and initial conditions, Hibbitt and Marcall (1973) have used a FE based numerical method to
model a single pass butt-weld. They have also studied the effect of temperature gradient on the stress
distribution for butt-welds. Goldak (2005) has used Double Ellipsoidal Power Density Distribution
method to model the heat input during the welding process. Brickstad and Josefson (1998) have
obtained the due weld residual stresses in multi-pass butt-weld using FE based computer code
ABAQUS and Element Birth and Death technique. Deng (2009) has employed Goldaks model in
computer code ABAQUS and has shown that this model can predict the weld pool shape properly. In
addition, the effect of phase change on the residual stresses has been taken into account in their model.
Vakili-Tahami et al. (2009) have also used the Element Birth and Death technique to estimate the due
weld residual stresses in a 3D-FE based model.
Goldak et al. (2005) have investigated the risk of burn-through during the welding of
pressurized gas pipe lines. For this purpose, they have obtained the temperature gradient in a transverse
T joint welding using FE analysis and have shown that the weld bead size and the fillet radius have
significant effect on the size of the weld pool and fusion zone (FZ) penetration depth. They have
shown that the weld pool size and FZ penetration depth have major role in burn-through. Thermoelasto-plastic analysis has been used by Wahab et al. (2005) and Sabapathy et al. (2001) to predict the
burn-through of pipeline welding. They have used empirical relationships to estimate the weld pool
size. They have also investigated the effect of different welding parameters. Vakili-Tahami et al.
(2009) have used a 2D-FE model to study the burn-through risk in welding process. They have shown
that the risk is high during the first pass of the welding process and this risk reduces at subsequent
passes. They have shown that this is because of the weld bead size and its location.
The main purpose in investigating the risk of burn-through is to assess the strength of the main
pipe wall to sustain the existing thermo-mechanical stresses during the in-service welding. This task is
completely different from those works that investigate the strength of the weldment itself to carry the
applied loads while the structure operates under applied loads. All the experimental observations and
recent studies have confirmed that over-heating plays a major role in burn-through occurrence (Oddy,
et al., 1999). To reduce the over-heating, electrodes with smaller diameters can be used which in turn
may lead to hot cracking due to the rapid cooling of the welding pool and HAZ. However, the mutual
effect of the thermo-mechanical stresses has not been addressed in these research works and this aspect
is the main achievement of the present study.
In this paper, the results of a numerical study have been presented for a 3D thermal-mechanical
finite element analysis of an in-service welding process on a pressurized pipeline T joint. In this work,
the in-service welding process and burn-through risks have been studied for welding of a T shape
branch connection on a super-heat steam pipeline while it is operating at full line pressure. Also, the
effect of electrode diameter size and the main pipe thickness have been investigated. For this purpose,
a 3D FE model of the T branch has been developed and the movement of the electrode has been
simulated using Element Birth and Death technique. In this model, the risk of burn-through has been
checked by comparing the temperature level at the inner wall of the main-pipe with the critical
temperature level; and also, by comparing the thermo-mechanical effective or Von-Mises stress level
along the pipe wall against the yield stress at the associated temperature.

2. Materials and Models

In this model, a T joint branch with the inner diameter of 152.4 mm is welded on a main pipe with the
diameter of 219.1 mm to perform hot tapping. Table 1 shows the variation of the physical and
mechanical properties of 316 Stainless Steel with temperatures (Vakili-Tahami, 2002). During the

Finite Element Analysis of the In-service-Welding of T Joint Pipe Connections

560

welding process, the main pipe conveys superheated steam flow of 76 ton/hr at 480oC and 10.2 MPa,
while, the branch pipe is open-ended and is not under pressure or external loads.
In order to investigate the effect of the main pipe thickness in burn-through, two different wall
thicknesses of 8.2 mm and 2.8 mm have been considered. In addition, to study the effect of heat input
the welding process has been modeled using 4 and 8 weld-passes.
Table 1-a: Thermal, physical and mechanical properties of AISI 316 stainless steel (Vakili-Tahami, 2002)
Temperatu
re (0C)
20
100
300
500
700
900
1100
1300
1460
1780

Specific
Heat
(J/Kg.oC)
470
487
529
571
613
655
698
719
765
765

Conductivit
y (W/m.oC)

Density
(Kg/m3)

Yield Stress
(Pa)

Thermal
Exp. (1/ oC)

13.31
14.68
17.93
20.96
23.76
26.33
28.67
29.76
64
320

7966
7966
7966
7966
7966
7966
7966
7966
7966
7966

480e6
445e6
420e6
351.3e6
254.2e6
80.7e6
80.7e6
80.7e6
80.7e6
80.7e6

15.24e-6
15.80e-6
16.97e-6
17.85e-6
18.54e-6
19.11e-6
19.66e-6
19.95e-6
20.70e-6
20.70e-6

Young
Modulus
(Pa)
195.1e9
191.2e9
179.6e9
164.5e9
144.1e9
116.8e9
100.0e9
100.0e9
100.0e9
100.0e9

Poissons
ratio
0.267
0.273
0.310
0.313
0.282
0.240
0.223
0.223
0.223
0.223

Table 1-b: Temperature dependent Hardness Modulus of AISI 316 stainless steel (Vakili-Tahami, 2002)
Temperature(K)
Hardness Modulus
(Pa)

298

302

399

482

566

1073

5.60e9

5.64e9

6.e9

7.65e9

4.65e9

2.35e9

2.1. Finite Element Model

A 3D FE model of the T branch has been developed and the movement of the electrode has been
simulated using Element Birth and Death technique. The heat dissipation through the in-pipe steam
flow has been taken into account by imposing convection boundary conditions along the inner wall of
the main pipe. In addition, the mechanical loads due to the internal steam pressure have been taken into
account. Since the temperature gradient near the weld pool is severe, material constitutive model takes
into account the temperature dependency of the physical parameters and they have been considered
temperature dependent. In this model, the risk of burn-through has been checked by comparing the
temperature level at the inner wall of the main-pipe with the critical temperature level; and also, by
comparing the thermo-mechanical effective or Von-Mises stress level along the pipe wall against the
yield stress at the associated temperature.
Figure 2 shows the 3D model of the T joint. The FE model has been developed using FE based
computer code ANSYS. Due to the thermo-mechanical properties of the solution, tetrahedral coupledfield element type SOLID98 with 10 nodes has been used to create the FE mesh. This element has four
degrees of freedom for each node: three for displacement and one for temperature and therefore is
capable of solving coupled thermo-mechanical analysis. Total number of elements in the FE model is
15957 with 63828 degrees of freedom including the temperature. To investigate the mesh sensitivity of
the model and also the mesh independency of the results, two other meshes have also been used in
which the number of elements have been increased and decreased by 10%. The maximum difference of
7.4% has been observed in temperature level for nodes using these FE meshes. To simulate the
movement of electrode, Element Birth and Death technique has been used. For this purpose, the whole
saddle shape of the weld has been divided into 60 blocks in each pass. In this way, each block has 8
mm length which is in accordance with Rosenthals model (Parmar, 2002). At first, the blocks are
deactivated and excluded from the global FE mesh. Once the welding starts, blocks have been activated

561

Mohammad Zehsaz, Farid Vakili-Tahami, Mohammad-Ali Saeimi-Sadigh and Seyedreyhani

successively (birth of elements) each one after 2 or 2.67 seconds to accommodate the predefined
welding speeds of 20 cm/min or 15 cm/min respectively.
Figure 2: The 3D model of the T joint and the saddle shape weldment

2.2. Thermo-Mechanical Boundary Conditions

During the welding process, the input heat melts both the filler material and the parent material
surrounding the weld pool. The amount of the heat input can be obtained using (Parmar, 2002):
Q = VI
(1)
in which usually estimated in the range of 0.6-0.7 (Parmar, 2002). According to the welding process
documents; for this welding V=30 volts and I= 70 A.
The governing partial differential equation which describes the heat transfer near the weld pool
is (Lewis et al., 2004):
T
(2)
c ( x, y, z, t ) = .q( x, y, z, t ) + Q(x, y, z)
t
The generated heat in a welding process will dissipate from the welding zone by thermal
radiation, conduction and convection. Radiation losses are dominant at high temperatures near and in
the weld zone, while the convection has a major role at low temperatures in the area away from the
weld pool. To take into account these two effects, a total temperature-dependent heat transfer
coefficient has been used (Brickstad et al., 1998):
0.0668T (W / m 2 o C) When 0 T 5000 C
(3)
h=
(0.231T 82.1)(W / m 2

C) When T 5000 C

The above thermal boundary condition has been employed on all free boundaries of the 3D
model. The main pipe conveys superheated steam flow of 76 ton/hr (21.1 kg/s) at 480oC and 10.2x106
Pa. Due to the passing steam flow with the velocity of 25.1 m/s, convection heat transfer on the inner
side of the pipe-wall has been calculated to be 2000 W/m2K using (Wanger et al 2008):
hg D
kg

= 0 . 023 (

g v g D 0 . 8 C pg g 0 . 4
) (
)
g
kg

(4)

The thermal-physical properties of super heat steam at 480oC and 10.2 x106 Pa to calculate
hg are listed in Table 2 (Wanger et al., 2008).
Table 2:

Thermo-physical properties of super heat steam at 480oC and 10.2 x106 Pa (Wanger et al., 2008)

Physical property
Thermal Conductivity
Density
Specific Heat
Viscosity

Values
Kg=0.075 (Watt/mK)
g=30 kg/m3
Cpg=2600 J/kgK
g =29x10-6 Pa.s

Finite Element Analysis of the In-service-Welding of T Joint Pipe Connections

562

2.3. Thermo-Mechanical Model

The governing equations of thermo-elasticity in terms of displacement components and in the absence
of body forces are (Eslami et al., 2009):
..

ui ,kk + ( + )uk ,ki (3 + 2 )T,i = ui

(5)

Using the strain-displacement relation, ij = 1 2(ui , j + u j ,i ) and substituting into equation (5) yields
..

ij ,kk + ( + ) kk ,ij (3 + 2 )T,ij = ij

(6)

Substituting for strain from stress-strain relations

1
(7)
ij = ( ij
kk ij ) + (T T0 ) ij
2
3 + 2
where (T-T0) is the temperature change. According to the principle of virtual work and the divergence
theorem, the equilibrium equations and the constitutive equations can be rewritten in the matrix form
as
T
(8)
[ B ] { } dV = { R } = [ K ]{ U e }
V

To model the welding process, it is necessary to solve the equations based on a non-linear
isotropic hardening elasto-plastic theory. For this purpose, a bi-linear elasto-plastic formulation of the
material behavior has been used. Also, an incremental calculation has been employed to accommodate
the nonlinearity of the nodal displacement functions in the elasto-plastic analysis. Using the thermoelasto-plastic material model, based on the Von-Mises yield criterion and the isotropic strain hardening
rule, stressstrain relations can be written as
(9)
{ e } = { Dep }[ B ]{ U e } {C th }[ M ]{ Te }
Substituting EQUATION (9) into the incremental form of EQUATION (8) yields
m +1
(10)
{K1}{U e } m +1 {K 2 }{Te } = {R}
where m+1{K1 } = [B] T {Dep }[B]dV , and m +1{ K 2 } = [ B ] T { C th }[ M ] dV . The displacement increment
V

{ U e } and stress increment { e } can be obtained from equations (9) and (10). With these results,
the displacement { U e } and stress { e } can be obtained.

3. Results
To investigate the effects of heat input and main pipe thickness, the numerical analyses have been
carried out using different number of conditions shown in Table 3. For these case studies, temperature
profiles and stress distributions along the main pipe wall have been obtained. Results are presented for
the critical position of the weldment along the path A-B of the main pipe wall (see in Figure 3).
Table 3:

Different conditions of model/solution

Case study
1
2
3

Weld Passes
8
4
8

Electrode Diameter (mm)

2.4
4
2.4

Main Pipe Thickness (mm)

2.8
8.2
8.2

Figure 4 illustrates the temperature gradient when electrode reaches to position =90 at time
t=30Sec in T joint connection. Due to steam flow in main pipe temperature is 634k in main pipe and
temperature in fusion zone is 1673k.
Figure 5 shows the temperature profile along path A-B for the case study No 1 at = 0
degrees. This position refers to the starting stage of the welding process. It can be seen that the
temperature at the inner surface of the main pipe wall is 987C (1260K) which is higher than the

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Mohammad Zehsaz, Farid Vakili-Tahami, Mohammad-Ali Saeimi-Sadigh and Seyedreyhani

critical level of 980C (1250K). According to the API recommendations (API, 1995), there is a high
risk of burn-through for this case.
Figure 3: Path A-B along which the results are presented and compared
Welding start point
=0

A
B
Path A-B from
weld center

Figure 4: Temperature gradient at t=30Sec

Temperature (K)

Figure 5: Temperature profile distribution at = 0 degrees for case study No 1

1700
1650
1600
1550
1500
1450
1400
1350
1300
1250
1200

Temprature

0.5

1.5
2
Distane (mm)

2.5

3.5

Figure 6 depicts both the temperature and effective stress (Von Mises stress) distributions at
=0 degrees along path A-B for case studies 2 and 3. It can be seen that for both case studies, the main
pipe inner wall temperature is about 537oC (800K) which is lower than the critical level of 980oC
(1250K). This shows, by increasing the pipe thickness, heat wave from the weld-pool does not

Finite Element Analysis of the In-service-Welding of T Joint Pipe Connections

564

penetrate in the pipe thickness and therefore the risk of burn-through reduces significantly. However,
the weld beads applied in case 2 (with 4 weld passes) are larger than those which have been used in
case study 3 (with 8 weld passes). Therefore, in the former (case 2 with 4 weld passes), the amount of
heat input is more than the amount of heat which has been imposed in case study 3, and consequently,
as it can be seen in Figure 6, the temperature level along the main pipe wall is higher for case 2
comparing with those obtained for case 3. This leads to higher thermal stresses that also can be seen in
Figure 6. The effective stress level along the inner side of the main-pipe wall, which is the combination
of mechanical and thermal stresses, plays a major role and reflects the ability of the pipe to sustain the
internal pressure. Since the pipe is AISI 316 stainless steel, the Von-Mises failure criterion has been
used here to investigate the pipe wall failure. At the first 3 millimeters beneath the weld pool, the
temperature is above 800oC (1073K) and practically the material is unable to sustain any stresses at this
temperature. However, the bilinear isotropic hardening model and cut-off method, which have been
used in this study, leads to high values of Elastic and Hardness Modulus at this temperature level (see
Table 2) and therefore numerical solution overestimates the stresses at this region. Due to the lack of
experimental data which give the mechanical behavior of the material beyond 800oC, there was no
other choice to carry out the analysis using the available data (Vakili-Tahami, 2002). To highlight
these shortcomings, the stress distribution at beyond 800oC-zone is shown using dotted lines in the
presented figures. It should be added that the above 800oC-zone plays an insignificant role in terms
of sustaining mechanical or thermal stresses.
The effective stress distribution along the main pipe wall presented in Figure 6, shows that for
case 2, at almost 87% of the main pipe wall, the effective stress is higher than the yield stress and
therefore there is a high risk of burn-through. To reduce the risk of burn-through, in case study 3, the
number of weld passes have been increased to 8, and as it can be seen in Figure 6, only in the 37% of
the pipe wall, the effective stress is above the yield stress level, and therefore there is no risk of burnthrough. The lower stress levels in case 3 is due to the lower thermal stresses which in turn is due to the
low heat input using smaller weld beads.

1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0

stress_4pass
Stress_8pass
yeild stress
Temperature_4pass
Temperature_8pass

1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0

Temperature (k)

Stress (MPa)

Figure 6: Temperature profile and effective stress distribution at =0 degrees for case study No 2 and 3

Distance from weld center (mm)

Figure 7 illustrates both the temperature profile and effective stress distributions at =90
degrees or 30 seconds after the start of the welding. This figure shows that the inner wall temperature
does not change significantly for both case studies and it remains below the critical level. The effective
stress level for case study 2 is almost 35% larger than that obtained for case study 3. This figure also
shows that burn-through is inevitable at case study 2 because in this case study, the effective stress

565

Mohammad Zehsaz, Farid Vakili-Tahami, Mohammad-Ali Saeimi-Sadigh and Seyedreyhani

along the main pipe thickness is higher than yield stress. However, for case study 3, at 51% of the main
pipe thickness the effective stress is lower than the yield stress and therefore, the risk of burn-through
is very slim and the pipe can withstand the internal pressure during the welding process.

1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0

1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0

stress_4pass
Stress_8pass
yeild stress
Temperature_4pass
Temperature_8pass

Temperature (k)

Stress (MPa)

Figure 7: Temperature profile and effective stress distribution at =90 degrees for case study No 2 and 3

Distance from weld center (mm)

Figures 8, 9 and 10 also show the temperature profile and effective stress distributions for case
study 3 at =180, 270 and 360 degrees respectively. It can be seen that at =180o, in the range of
5.2<t<8.2mm (36.6% of the pipe wall) and at =270o in the range of 3.4<t<8.2mm (58.5% of the pipe
wall) the effective stress is below the yield stress. Figure 10 presents the data for the end of the welding
process i.e. =360o. It can be seen that at this position, in the distance of 5.4<t<8.2mm (34.1%) along the
main pipe-wall, the effective stress is below the yield stress. The results shown in these figures imply
that the end position of the weld in each pass (position =360o) is the most critical situation. This is due
to the accumulation of the existing thermal stresses during the welding process.

1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0

1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0

Stress_8pass
yeild stress
Temperature

Distance from weld center (mm)

Temperature (k)

Stress (MPa)

Figure 8: Temperature profile and effective stress distribution at =180 degrees for case study No 3

Finite Element Analysis of the In-service-Welding of T Joint Pipe Connections

566

800
700

yeild stress

600
Stress (MPa)

1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0

Stress_8pass
Temperature

500
400
300
200
100
0
0

Distance from weld center (mm)

Temperature (k)

Figure 9: Temperature profile and effective stress distribution at =270 degrees for case study No 3

The percentage of the main pipe thickness at which the effective stress is below the yield stress
for two case studies has been given in Table 4. Comparing these results and also those shown in Figs.
6-10; leads to the conclusion that by increasing the number of weld passes (decreasing the size of the
weld bead and amount of the heat input) the risk of burn-through reduces significantly and also the
positions of =360o and =180o are the critical ones in terms of burn-through possibility. Despite the
fact that the inner wall temperature for case study 2 is below the critical level of 980oC, the results
show a high risk of burn-through at this case.

1000

yeild stress

800
Stress (MPa)

1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0

Stress_8pass
Temperature

600
400
200
0
0

Distance from weld center (mm)

Temperature (k)

Figure 10: Temperature profile and effective stress distribution at =360 degrees for case study No 3.

567

Mohammad Zehsaz, Farid Vakili-Tahami, Mohammad-Ali Saeimi-Sadigh and Seyedreyhani

Table 4:

Percentage of the main pipe thickness in which the effective stress is below the yield stress

Position =
Case Study 2 (4 weld pass)
Case Study 3 (8 weld pass)

0
13%
63%

90
0%
51%

180
0%
36.6%

270
0%
58.5%

360
0%
34%

5. Conclusion
In this study, the thermo-mechanical stresses as well as the temperature distribution along the pipe wall
thickness have been obtained. The results highlight the fact that to evaluate the risk of burn-through,
not only the inner wall temperature of the main pipe should be checked against the critical level of
980oC, but also the level of the effective stresses must be compared against the temperature dependent
yield stress of the material. The results and industrial observations show that this is a more accurate
criterion to check the risk of burn-through.
According to the results, the following points can be concluded:
1) The thickness of the main pipe has a major role in the occurrence of burn-through. By
increasing the pipe thickness, the Fusion Zone and the heat wave from the weld-pool does
not penetrate in the pipe thickness and therefore the risk of burn-through reduces
significantly.
2) The results shown in these figures imply that the end position of the weld in each pass is
the most critical situation.3) The results also show the importance of the amount of heat
input during the welding process. In excessive heat input, the risk of burn-through
increases drastically.
3) By increasing the number of weld passes, the size of the weld beads and consequently the
amount of heat input reduces which all lead to lower risk of burn-through.
4) To prevent burn-through, in addition to the main pipe inner surface wall temperature, the
effective stress along the main pipe wall should be checked against the yield stress at the
same temperature.

Acknowledgement
The authors would like to express their gratitude for the technical and financial support provided by the
Tabriz Refinery Company and for the help of R&D centre of this plant for providing valuable
information, infield observations and technical data.
Symbols
[B]
c
{Cth}
D
{Dp}
h
I
[K]
kg
[M]
Q
t
T
u

Operator matrix
Specific heat (J/kgK)
Thermal stiffness matrix
Diameter(m)
Plastic stiffness matrix
Heat transfer coefficient (W/m2K)
Current (A)
Stiffness matrix
Thermal conductivity (W/mK)
Temperature shape function
Heat generation (J)
Time (s)
Temperature (K)
Displacement (m)

{Ue}
V
vg

{T}
{e}
{e}

Nodal displacement
Voltage (V)
Velocity of steam (m/s)
Thermal expansion coefficient (K-1)
Temperature increment matrix
Nodal stress increment matrix
Nodal strain increment
Welding efficiency
Lame constant (Pa)
Lame constant (Pa)
Viscosity (Pa.s)
Density (kg/m3)
Strain
Kronecker delta

Finite Element Analysis of the In-service-Welding of T Joint Pipe Connections

568

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[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]

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