Effects of the bend angle and the length of the attached straight pipe on plastic loads for pipe bends

This paper quantifies effects of the bend angle and the length of the attached straight pipe on plastic limit loads of the 90 degrees pipe bend, based on small strain FE limit analyses using elastic-perfectly plastic materials with the small geometry change option. It is found that the effect of the length of the attached straight pipe on plastic limit loads can be significant, and the limit loads tend to decrease with decrease of the length of the attached straight pipe. Regarding the effect of the bend angle, it is found the plastic load smoothly changes from the limit load of the straight pipe when the bend angle approaches zero to the plastic load of the 90 degrees pipe bend when the bend angle approaches 90 degree.