Curved wide plate testing with advanced instrumentation and interpretation

Curved wide plate testing is a valuable experimental tool to determine the strain capacity of flawed pipeline girth welds under tension. However, its design, test procedure and analysis are not standardized to date. In an effort to contribute to these three aspects, the authors have executed medium scale (curved) wide plate tests with full field strain measurements and unloading compliance crack extension measurements. This paper discusses specifications, possibilities and limitations of both features and provides representative results. Full field strain measurements and unloading compliance analysis support the validation of a finite element model for curved wide plate testing, and confirm the ability to obtain uniform strain fields in the pipe sections. It is expected that these results may contribute to a future standardization of the curved wide plate test