A study on the reliability assessment methodology for pressure piping containing circumferential defects. I: Computation method of failure probability of welded joint containing circumferential defects

When the reliability of a pressure piping needs to be assessed, every welded joint containing defects should first be analyzed. This paper describes a computational method of failure probability of a welded joint containing circumferential defects; the uncertainties of variables, relation of random variables and three possible failure modes of the pipe are considered. Then a new probability limit state model is set up, and the Monte-Carlo simulation method is employed to compute the failure probability of welded joint. In the end, a typical example of this approach is presented.