Steady state analysis for dynamic crack propagation in gas pipelines

The dynamic finite element program PFRAC(Pipeline FRacture Analysis Code) is suitable for the transient analysis of Rapid Crack Propagation (RCP) in gas pipelines [1]. A facility for direct steady state analysis is not available and this greatly increases the computational effort for steady state RCP problems. To rectify this, a program for the steady state analysis is developed in this paper, This is in contrast to the transient limitation in PFRAC, where much computing time is spent on crack propagation. Comparison of deformation for the pipe shows good agreement between transient analysis and steady state RCP computations.