Fatigue failure analysis of grey cast iron water pipes accounting for fatigue strength variation

Fatigue cracking is thought to be a critical failure mode for Grey Cast Iron (GCI) water pipes; however, this failure mechanism is poorly understood. Using a novel approach to sourcing GCI pipe material for testing, the variation in fatigue strength between pipes from the same batch was experimentally quantified. These results were used to assess the impact of fatigue strength variation on a hypothetical but realistic GCI water pipe years-to-failure scenario. Full-pipe sections were used during fatigue testing and the observed failure mode gave physical meaning to the years-to-fatigue-failure predictions for the first time. The accumulation of fatigue damage was predicted to represent a terminal and very small part of a GCI pipe’s life, so the loads applied to a GCI pipe early in its life are likely to have a limited impact on its remaining life and so do not need to be included in predictive modelling. For the scenario considered here, the predicted variation in lifetime was an 8.6-year range about an average of 59.4 years. GCI pipes in the UK are all > 50 years old, so this is a significant variation for asset and investment planners to account for as these pipes approach the end of their lives.