Numerical Simulation of Sleeve Repair Welding on In-service 16Mn

Crude Oil Pipelines

CEN Kang1, ZHANG Dongliang1,YIN Jiancheng2
1. School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Southwest Petroleum University, P.R.China
2. Sichuan Northeast Natural Gas Field, Southwest Branch Company, CNPC, P.R.China
cenkangxt@126.com
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of welding conditions on the risk of
burn-through and HIC during in-service welding on 16Mn crude oil pipelines. Based on the SYSWELD
software, an axisymmetric finite e1ement model was used to calculate the temperature distribution,
maximum HAZ hardness, and the distribution of residual stress during multipass sleeve fillet welding on
in-service oil pipelines of 8 mm thickness under different welding conditions. The effects of welding
conditions on risk of burn-through and HIC have been studied by the orthogonal test method and the
allowable range of heat input under different pipe thicknesses have also been determined. The results
show that: 1) heat input and pipe thickness have much more effects on the risk of burn-through and
susceptibility to HIC during in-service welding on 16Mn steel oil pipelines; 2) peak temperature on the
inner pipe surface and heat input are nearly in proportion to pipe thickness; 3) there is an upper limit of
heat input corresponding to a certain pipe thicknesses, under which burn-through will not occur during
in-service wilding.
Keywords: 16Mn, oil pipeline, in-service welding, numerical simulation

1 Introduction
16Mn steel oil pipelines have been widely built in the last century in China, which now are often
required to repair defects due to construction faults, corrosion and ground movement. Compared to the
traditional repair technologies, the in-service welding repair technology has great social and economic
benefits as well as broad application prospect, because normal service can be maintained and no venting
of the contents is needed. But the safety problem must be seriously considered during in-service welding
since burn-through and HIC may occur, which may induce disastrous accidents. However, the effects of
various welding conditions on the safety of in-service welding on 16Mn steel oil pipeline are still
uncertain. Therefore, it is of great significance in studying the effects of different factors such as pipe
thickness, heat input, temperature and velocity of the contents on the safety of in-service welding, which
can be valuable for the more application of the new repair technology in 16Mn steel oil pipeline.
In the paper, by simulating the temperature distribution on the inner surface, heat-affected zone (HAZ)
hardness and residual stress distribution during in-service welding on 16Mn steel pipelines based on the
SYSWELD software, effects of various factors such as pipe thickness, heat input, temperature and
velocity of the contents on the safety of in-service welding have been discussed by the orthogonal test
method, and the allowed range of heat input under different pipe thicknesses have also been studied.

2 Numerical Model
2.1 Geometrical model and restrictions
The schematic illustration of this sleeve repair welding method is shown in Fig.1. Two sleeves are
attached to the pipe around damaged sections and then circumferential fillet welding and longitudinal
butt-joint welding are performed. An axisymmetric 2D finite element model, shown in fig.2, was
developed to simulate multipass sleeve fillet welding on in-service 16Mn oil pipelines. The diameter and
the thickness of the pipe are 377 and 8 mm, and the repair sleeves were made by a 394-mm-diameter
pipe with 8-mm thickness. The chemical compositions of the 16Mn pipe and sleeve are listed in Table 1.
407

The restrictions of two terminals are of rigidity restrictions.

sleeve
fillet weld
pipe

Fig.1 Schematic of Sleeve Repair Welding on Pipe

Fig.2

Axisymmetric Finite Element Mesh for Sleeve Fillet Welding

Table 1 The Chemical Compositions (wt-%) of The Pipe and Sleeve

Element

Mn

Si

Cu

Pipe (Sleeve)

0.15

1.3

0.3

0.27

0.04

0.05

2.2 Thermal boundary conditions

According to the heat transfer theory, the third boundary condition
calculation on the inner and outer surface of the pipeline.

[1]

can be applied for heat transfer

T
= (Ta Ts )
n

(1)

Where n is outer normal vector of boundary surfaces, is the conductivity coefficient (W/mK),
is the surface heat transfer coefficient (W/m2oC), Ts is the surface temperature (oC) and Ta is
environment temperature (oC).
The heat exchange form between exterior surface of the pipe and air is mainly radiation and
nature-convection heat transfer. The total coefficient of heat transfer is shown as follows [2]:

= 4.536 10 8 [(273 + T0 ) + (273 + T )] [(273 + T0 ) 2 + (273 + T )2 ] + 25

(2)

Where T0 is environment temperature (here is 20 C) and T1 is surface temperature of the weld joint.
The heat exchange form between inner surface of pipe and oil in the pipe is forced-convention heat
transfer, and the coefficient of heat transfer is [1]:

Where Re is Reynold

= 0.027 Re0.8 Pr1 3 ( )0.14

d
w
number, Pr is Prandtl number, is the
408

(3)
kinetic viscosity of crude oil (Pas),

 w is the kinetic viscosity of crude oil at inner wall temperature(Pas).

w can be calculated by[2]:
w = 0 (
Where T2 is the inner wall temperature (oC),

273 + T2 0.76
)
273

(4)

is the kinetic viscosity of crude oil at 0oC (Pas).

The crude oil is produced in Daqing Oil Field, whose relationship between viscosity and temperature is
obtained by testing, and whose relative density, specific heat and coefficient of heat conductivity are
calculated by the formula from reference [3].
2.3 Heat source model and material properties
Gauss heat source model is chosen because it is more suitable for manual shielded metal arc welding
(SMAW) [4]. The models parameters are determined preliminarily on the basis of different electric
currents which make different depth and width of molten pool, then amended until the shape of the pool
is identical to that of practice. 30 groups of welding parameters are chosen during the simulations, which
are: 1) the range of electric current is among 40~200A; 2) the range of voltage is among 18~25V; 3) the
range of welding velocity is among 2~10mm/s; 4) the range of heat input is among 400 ~2000J/mm.
The parameters of thermal physical properties of 16Mn are calculated by the formula from reference [5].

3 Calculation Results and Analysis

3.1 Sensitivity analysis of the effects of various welding conditions
Based on the previous model, the peak temperature on the inner surface of the pipeline (Tmax), the
highest HAZ hardness (Hmax) and the highest residual stresses ( max ) corresponding to different pipe
thickness, heat input, oil temperature and velocity are obtained by numerical simulations. And the
relationship between them is analyzed by the orthogonal test method [6]. Factors of the orthogonal test
and their levels are listed in table 1, the test plan and its results in table2 and the index analysis in table
3.In table 3, A, B, C and D are the factors which represents oil velocity, oil temperature, pipe thickness
and heat input respectively; K1, K2 and K3 are the sum of the three indexes value corresponding to the
three levels, and k1, k2 and k3 are the average value of K1, K2 and K3 respectively; R is the extreme
difference value between k1, k2 and k3, which reflects the range of index value when other factors
change. As a result, the bigger value R is, the more important role the factor plays.
Table 2 Factors and Levels in The Orthogonal Test
Content Velocity
Content
Wall Thickness
(m/s)
Temperature (oC)
(mm)
1
40
8
2
50
10
3
60
12

Factors
Levels
1
2
3

Heat Input
(J/mm)
400
600
1200

Table 3 Test Plan and Results

Factors
Test
NO.
1
2
3
4
5

Test Index

Content
Velocity(m/s)

Content
Temperature
(oC)

Wall
Thickness
(mm)

Heat Input
(J/mm)

1
1
1
2
2

1
2
3
1
2

1
2
3
2
3

1
2
3
3
1
409

Tmax(oC)

Hmax (HV)

401
408
618
678
250

318
299
211
221
320

max
(MPa)
340
368
309
300
403

6
7
8
9

2
3
3
3

3
1
2
3

1
3
1
2

2
2
3
1

488
335
794
265

312
308
246
293

362
391
300
379

Table 4 Analysis on Indexes

Test
Index
Factors
K1
K2
K3
k1
k2
k3
R

Tmax (oC)
A
1427
1416
1394
476
472
465
11

B
1414
1452
1371
471
484
457
27

C
1684
1351
1203
561
450
401
160

max (MPa)

Hmax (HV)
D
916
1230
2091
305
410
697
392

A
828
853
847
276
284
282
8

B
847
866
815
282
289
272
17

C
876
813
839
292
271
280
21

D
930
918
679
310
306
226
84

A
1016
1065
1070
339
355
357
18

B
1030
1071
1050
343
357
350
14

C
1002
1047
1102
334
349
367
33

D
1121
1121
909
374
374
303
71

It can be concluded from the extreme difference value R in table 3 that the sequence of affecting degrees
of factors to inner surface peak temperature and HAZ hardness are heat input, pipe thickness, oil
temperature and oil velocity, while those of residual stress are heat input, pipe thickness, oil velocity and
oil temperature.
At present, the usual way to judge the risk of melt-through and HIC during in-service welding is to
analyze inner surface peak temperature and maximum HAZ hardness, namely, burn-through will not
occur if the inner surface temperature is below 980oC, and HIC can be avoided if the maximum HAZ
hardness is under 350HV [7]. The distribution of residual stress is usually used to check the risk of HIC
as a supplementary way. So a conclusion can be drawn that the heat input and pipe thickness are the
main factors affecting the safety during in-service welding. Therefore, it should be specially considered
whether the match of heat input and pipe thickness is proper to keep operating safety during in-service
welding.
3.2 Safety analysis on in-service welding
Since burn-through may cause disastrous accidents, the prevention of burn-through is always the key
issue during in-service operations. So the relationship between inner surface peak temperature and heat
input corresponding to different pipe thicknesses is simulated, as shown in fig. 3 (the flow velocity in
the pipe is 2 m/s and temperature is 50oC ).

Fig.3 Relationship between inner surface peak temperature and heat input corresponding to different pipe
thicknesses

410

We can conclude from figure 3 that when pipe thickness is certain, the peak temperature on the inner
surface of the pipeline are nearly in direct proportion to the heat input, while when heat input is certain,
the inner surface peak temperature increases with the decrease of pipe thickness. Therefore,
burn-through is inclined to occur when heat input is high and pipe thickness is small. According to the
traditional control approaches for burn-through, the value of heat input corresponding to the inner
surface temperature being 980oC in figure 3 is the upper limit of heat input under a certain pipe
thickness. So a set of pipe thicknesses and their corresponding upper limit of heat input can be obtained
and the interface curve between safe and dangerous areas can been drawn as shown in figure 4. In figure
4, the area under the curve is the safe area when in-service welding on16Mn steel oil pipeline.

Fig.4 Upper limit of heat input under different pipe thicknesses

4 Conclusion
1) Heat input and pipe thickness are the main factors affecting the safety during in-service welding.
2) When pipe thickness is certain, the peak temperature on the inner surface of the pipeline are nearly in
direct proportion to the heat input, while when the heat input is certain, the inner surface peak
temperature increases with the decrease of pipe thickness.
3) There is an upper limit of heat input corresponding to a certain pipe thickness, and burn-through may
occur when the heat input is higher than the upper limit.
Acknowledgements:
Sponsored by Scientific Research Fund (No.40) of Southwest Petroleum University

References
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