The current work presents a finite element analysis (FEA) based investigation of the structural steel pipe with internal corrosion defects. A total of 27 different geometrical conditions for internal corrosion defect were considered using 3 different internal pressures of 2.2 MPa, 4.5 MPa, and 6 MPa. The validation of the FEA model was carried out using the analytical solution for failure pressure using radial and hoop stresses. The failure pressure of the uncorroded pipe was 11.5 MPa. In contrast, for pipe with internal corrosion defect having the largest defect depth (1.7 mm), largest length (454 mm), and sharpest geometry (width of 26 mm), the failure pressure from FEA was 6 MPa. The remaining strength at this boundary condition was 0.521. The radial stress influences the strain in wall thickness which was 8.8 mm and much less as compared to other dimensions of pipeline which diminishes the material's ability to resist the failure pressure. The Von-Mises stress accumulation inside the interface increases the stress intensity (K) distribution at the vicinity of the internal corrosion defect geometry vis-à-vis lowers the K-distribution just outside of the internal corrosion defect. The largest factor of safety (FOS) of 2.11 was obtained at threshold boundary conditions considering fatigue limit as the optimum stress. It is then suggested that the FOS for the "break-before-leak" leak model can be anywhere between 2.11 to 1.45 and hence the pipeline cannot burst into rapture.
