Numerical study on cohesive zone elements for static and time dependent damage and its application in pipeline failure analysis

Cohesive zone model is one of the most widely used model for fracture analysis, but still remains open ended field for research. The earlier works using the cohesive zone model and Extended finite element analysis (XFEM) have been briefly introduced followed by an elaborate elucidation of the same concepts. Cohesive zone model in conjugation with XFEM is used for analysis in static condition in order to check its applicability in failure analysis. A real time setup of pipeline failure due to impingement is analyzed along with a detailed parametric study to understand the influence of the prominent design variable. After verifying its good applicability, a creep model is built for analysis where the cohesive zone model with XFEM is used for a time dependent creep loading. The challenge in this simulation was to achieve coupled behavior of cracks initiation and propagation along with creep loading. By using Design of Experiment, the results from numerical simulation were used to build an equation for life prediction for creep loading condition. The work was further extended to account for fatigue damage accumulation for high cycle fatigue loading in cohesive elements. A model was conceived to account for damage due to fatigue loading along within cohesive zone model for cohesive elements in ABAQUS simulation software. The model was verified by comparing numerical modelling of Double cantilever beam under high cycle fatigue loading and experiment results from literature. The model was also applied to a major industrial problem of blistering in Cured-In-Plane liner pipelines and a demonstration of its failure is shown. In conclusion, various models built on cohesive zone to address static and time dependent loading with real time scenarios and future scope of work in this field is discussed.