Mechanical arrestors are frequently used in steel gas transmission pipelines to prevent the possibility of long running cracks. These arrestors have the effect of reducing the pipe from opening as the crack passes. This decreases the available crack driving force and, as a result crack arrest may take place. This essentially is a second line of defence against catastrophic failure in the event that crack initiation cannot always be prevented. A novel analysis methodology, presented here, has been developed to investigate the suitability of these crack arrestors. This is based on a fluid/structure/fracture interaction package, PFRAC. Here a curved beam element has been implemented into PFRAC to simulate the behaviour of the arrestor. The contact conditions between the pipe wall and the arrestor, along with the various computational procedures are described here. Several numerical results for a cracked pipe with arrestors are presented along with comparisons to pipes that do not have arrestors.

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