Fitness for Service Evaluation of

Ring Joint Groove Cracking

Cracking of ring joint style flanges has been a recurring problem in the petrochemical
industry, particularly in high-pressure hydrogen processing vessels. The cracking of the
R. G. Brown ring joint groove region is an inherent problem with the design. The ring groove is
G. M. Buchheim subjected to high stresses from the wedging action of the gasket and the ring groove radii
D. A. Osage are not substantial enough to effectively reduce the stress concentrating effect. A fitness
for service assessment was conducted for a hydrogen processing vessel containing cracks
J. L. Janelle in the ring groove radius region of a ring joint style flange. The flange was forged
Mechanical and Materials Engineering,
2-1/4Cr-1Mo material with a Type 347 SS overlay. Results of an elastic-plastic numerical
3570 Warrensville Center Road,
fracture mechanics assessment showed that the driving force for crack propagation was
Suite 210,
high for a very localized region near the ring groove radius. However, the driving force
Shaker Heights, OH 44122;
decreased significantly for deeper cracks as the crack tip became removed from the very
formerly, BP Oil Company,
localized high stress region of the ring groove. The assessment also showed that the
Cleveland, OH
highest stresses occurred during the bolt-up operation. Metallurgical tests were per-
formed on a small sample removed from the flange. The chemistry, grain size, microstruc-
ture, and hardness of the material indicated that the probability that this material had
very low resistance to hydrogen-assisted crack growth during downtime was quite small
and that the resistance to crack advance during service was good. Therefore, the com-
bined results of the fracture assessment and metallurgical testing were used to justify
continued operation without repair of the cracks present in the flange.
关S0094-9930共00兲01901-6兴

Introduction
Ring joint style flanges are commonly used in the petrochemi-
cal industry, particularly in high-pressure hydrogen applications.
This style of flange utilizes a solid metal gasket which has an oval
or octagonal cross section and relies on the wedging action of the
gasket into the flange face groove to provide a seal. Cracking of
ring joint flanges has been observed in the petrochemical industry
for many years 关1,2兴. The cracking mechanisms vary depending
on the flange materials. Solid austenitic stainless steel flanges
have cracked due to chloride stress corrosion cracking 共Cl SCC兲;
solid ferritic flanges have cracked purely due to overload; and
stainless steel overlay ferritic flanges have cracked possibly due to
a combination of mechanisms. The stainless steel overlay flanges
may be more prone to cracking than solid ferritic flanges due to
crack initiation by Cl SCC of the overlay and differential thermal
expansion and residual stresses between the stainless steel overlay
and the ferritic base metal. Nonetheless, a major factor in crack
initiation for all of these cases is the high localized stress at the
corners of the ring groove. It has been well documented that the
configuration of standard RTJ flanges does not include sufficient
radii at the base of the ring groove to effectively reduce the local-
ized peak stresses. Note that the ASME B16.5 standard permitted
a very sharp corner of essentially zero radius until a recent ad-
denda which includes the requirement for larger radii, which
should help mitigate cracking, but probably not eliminate it.
During routine inspection of a 2-1/4Cr-1Mo hydrogen process-
ing reactor vessel in a petroleum refinery, cracking was identified
in the ring joint flange of the inlet nozzle. The cracking was de-
tected while the flange connection was in the assembled condition
using a new angle beam UT technique. The cracks encompassed
approximately 180 deg of circumference and were located at both
the inner and outer radius of the flange ring joint groove. The
crack depth was 1.0 in. 共25.4 mm兲 on the innermost radius of the
Contributed by the Pressure Vessels and Piping Division 共Joint w/ICPVT兲 and
presented at the Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference, Boston, Massachusetts,
August 1–5, 1999, of THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS.
Manuscript received by the PVP Division, August 15, 1999; revised manuscript
received October 29, 1999. Technical Editor: S. Y. Zamrik.
ring groove and 0.5 in. 共12.7 mm兲 for the outer radius location. A
fitness for service 共FFS兲 assessment was performed to evaluate the
flange integrity with the presence of ring groove cracks and to
determine the need for immediate repairs.
FFS Assessment
The FFS assessment included finite element analysis 共FEA兲 of
the cracked flange assembly under applicable operating loadings
as well as metallurgical testing to characterize the material tough-
ness. A number of analyses were performed for a range of crack
depths located at the base of the ring joint groove to evaluate the
change in the crack tip driving force. Both elastic and elastic-
plastic analyses were performed to evaluate the impact of crack
tip plasticity in the resulting J-integral calculation.
Metallurgical Testing. A small sliver was removed from the
cracked flange. A chemistry analysis was performed to assess the
potential for temper embrittlement and a microstructural specimen
was prepared to examine the microstructure and to perform a mi-
crohardness test to assess the potential for hydrogen-assisted crack
growth. The material had a J factor of 139, which is unusually low
for 2-1/4Cr-1Mo steel produced in 1966, where J
⫽(percentSi⫹percentMn兲*共percentP⫹percentSn) * 104 关3兴. This
level of J is similar to reactor steels produced in the mid-1980s
and would not be expected to cause any significant level of temper
embrittlement. Another factor that indicates that this flange has
better than lower-bound toughness is a grain size of 5–6, a mi-
crostructure of mixed tempered bainite and ferrite, and a micro-
hardness of BHN 165–180. This indicates that the material has an
approximate tensile strength of 80 ksi 共551.5 MPa兲, which is suf-
ficiently low to indicate that a reasonably high PWHT temperature
was used during original construction. A steel of this strength
level and microstructure has low propensity for hydrogen-assisted
crack growth during downtime and has good resistance to crack
advance during service. A value of 80 ksi-in.1/2 共88 MPa-m1/2兲
was assumed for the lower threshold for hydrogen-assisted crack
growth at room temperature.
Stress Analysis and Fracture Assessment. The stress state

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 Fig. 1 Finite element mesh of flange assembly

in the cracked flange under applicable bolt preload and operating
loadings was evaluated using nonlinear FEA. In addition, results
from a separate piping analysis showed piping induced stresses to
be negligible. A two-dimensional axisymmetric FE analysis in-
cluding explicit modeling of the ring groove cracks was per-
formed using the ABAQUS program 关4兴. Since the actual crack
length encompassed 180 deg of circumference, an axisymmetric
analysis was considered a reasonable approximation. The analysis
included contact behavior between the gasket and flange. In addi-
tion, the bolt pretension option of the ABAQUS program was

Fig. 2 Deformed shape in ring groove crack region

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 utilized to apply the initial bolt load of 35 ksi 共241.3 MPa兲. Op-
erating loadings of 1950 psig 共13.4 MPa兲 pressure plus tempera-
ture were applied in a subsequent loading step in order to properly
adjust the initial bolt load. Note that the component metal tem-
peratures were included from a separate thermal analysis based on
a fluid temperature of 720°F 共382°C兲. The nozzle geometry is an
insert-type forging which is located in the spherical head of the
vessel. The ring groove geometry on the nozzle forging face is
consistent with ASME B16.5 standards and mates with a blind
flange. The low-alloy flange includes 0.25 in. 共6.4 mm兲 thick Type
347 stainless steel weld overlay on the flange face and wetted
surfaces. A detail illustrating the flange geometry and a typical
finite element mesh used for the analysis is provided in Fig. 1.
To perform the numerical fracture assessment, a focused mesh
was generated at the crack tip in order to determine the J-integral
using the contour integral approach provided in ABAQUS. In
addition to modeling of the actual inspection case consisting of
two ring groove cracks, a number of single-crack cases were ana-
lyzed to investigate the change in crack driving force for various
crack depths. The mesh in the crack tip region for the two-crack
case which represents the actual field inspection findings is pro-
vided in Fig. 2. Note that the mesh shown in Fig. 2 is in the
deformed configuration under applicable loadings to illustrate the
crack opening behavior.
Both elastic and elastic-plastic analyses were performed to
evaluate the impact of crack tip plasticity on the calculation of the
J-integral. For the elastic-plastic analyses, deformation plasticity
was utilized in conjunction with a Ramberg-Osgood representa-
tion of the material stress-strain curve. The material properties
used to determine the stress-strain curve were based on the ap-
proximate metal temperature of the flange in the region of the ring
groove. For the base metal, the specified material property values
included a modulus of elasticity of 27.0E6 psi 共186 GPa兲 and a
yield strength of 26.2 ksi 共181 MPa兲. For the stainless steel over-
lay, a modulus of elasticity of 25.0E6 psi 共172 GPa兲 and a yield

Table 1 Elastic-plastic fracture mechanics analysis results

Table 2 Linear elastic fracture mechanics analysis results

1
Single values shown are for one crack in the ring groove. The case which includes two crack depths depicts the actual
inspection findings case of two cracks in the ring groove.
2
The J-integral is a measure of the energy release rate at the crack tip. For elastic analysis, the J-integral can be related
to the stress intensity factor 共K兲 using the following expression: K l ⫽ 冑JE/(1⫺ v 2 ) where E⫽Elastic modulus 共30.0E6
psi assumed兲, J⫽J-Integral, v ⫽Poisson’s ratio 共0.3兲.

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 strength of 25.5 ksi 共176 MPa兲 were specified. For both materials,
a hardening exponent of 5.0 and a yield offset of 1.0 were
specified.
Results of the numerical fracture mechanics analyses are pro-
vided in Tables 1 and 2 for both elastic and elastic-plastic analy-
ses. Equivalent elastic stress intensity factors are tabulated for
various single crack depths for the preload case as well as the
operating case. In addition, the actual inspection case consisting
of cracks at each ring groove radius is included. Examining the
results shows that the preload case is the most significant con-
tributor to the crack tip driving force. In addition, for shallow
cracks 共less than 0.50 in. 共12.7 mm兲兲 there is significant crack tip
plasticity and a very high driving force for crack growth. For
crack depths of 0.50 in. and larger, crack tip plasticity is minimal
and the crack tip driving force drops significantly and shows little
increase for cracks as deep as 1.50 in. 共38.1 mm兲. The reduction in
stress intensity factor is due to a much lower stress field in the
bulk of the flange material away from the very highly localized
stress field at the ring groove radii. For the two-crack case, the
crack at the outer ring groove radius had no impact as the stress
intensity factor was very low. In addition, thermal expansion ef-
fects had minimal impact on the calculated stress intensity factor
results.
For the assessment of the integrity of the flange, the calculated
J-integral values were compared to available published data for
2-1/4Cr-1Mo in hydrogen service. As the results of the metallur-
gical testing performed indicated minimal temper embrittlement
and hydrogen-assisted crack growth potential for the flange mate-
rial, an appropriate lower-bound toughness of 80 ksi-in1/2 共88
MPa-m1/2兲 关5兴 at room temperature was used for the comparison.
Results of this comparison indicated that the calculated J-integral
values for the deeper cracks, including the actual cracks, was be-
low the lower-bound toughness values.
Discussion
Based on the results of the fracture assessment and metallurgi-
cal testing, it was recommended to start up the unit with no repairs
to the flange cracks. However, while the vessel was shut down,
heating coils were placed around the flange to maintain a metal
temperature of approximately 200°F 共93°C兲. This action was
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taken to minimize the risk of brittle fracture since the flange re-
mained under bolt load during the shutdown and the ambient tem-
perature was approaching the freezing mark. The unit was started
up with carefully controlled heat-up rates to minimize thermal
stresses. In addition, after the vessel was in operation, on-line UT
examination was performed to monitor for any additional crack
growth, and none was detected.
Conclusions
A fitness-for-service analysis was performed on a hydrogen
processing vessel containing cracks at the base of the inlet flange
ring groove. Numerical fracture mechanics techniques were uti-
lized to evaluate the existing cracks as well as to compare the
driving force for crack propagation for various crack depths. Re-
sults of the numerical analysis showed that crack growth was
possible for shallow cracks in close proximity to the ring groove
radius. However, for crack depths of approximately 0.50 in. 共12.7
mm兲 and greater, which were removed from the highly localized
stress field at the base of the ring groove, flaws had relatively low
driving force and were considered stable. Metallurgical analysis
showed that the material had relatively good fracture toughness
and hydrogen-assisted crack growth effects were considered mini-
mal. The assessment provided the basis for not opening the flange
pair and subjecting the assembly to another cycle of bolt preload.
The consequence was a large cost savings from avoidance of re-
pairs and extension of the shutdown duration.
References
关1兴 Ehmke, E. F., 1982, ‘‘Refinery Ring Groove Cracking Experience,’’ Proceed-
ings, API Refining Department, May.
关2兴 Nelson, N. W., and Karcher, G. G., 1988, ‘‘Analysis of Groove Cracking
Problems in Ring Joint Flanges,’’ ASME Paper No. 88-WA/PVP-1.
关3兴 Grosse-Wordemann, J., and Dittrich, S., 1983, ‘‘Prevention of Temper Em-
brittlement in 2-1/4Cr-1Mo Weld Metals by Metallurgical Actions,’’ Welding
Res. Suppl., pp. 123–128.
关4兴 Hibbitt, Karlson & Sorensen, Inc., 1997, ‘‘ABAQUS/Standard User’s
Manual—Volumes I-III, Version 5.7,’’ Pawtucket, RI.
关5兴 Iwadate, T., Karaushi, T., and Watanabe, J., 1977, ‘‘Prediction of Fracture
Toughness K IC of 2-1/4Cr-1Mo Pressure Vessel Steels from Charpy V-Notch
Test Results,’’ Flaw Growth and Fracture, ASTM STP 631, American Society
for Testing and Materials, pp. 493–506.
FEBRUARY 2000, Vol. 122 Õ 75