Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The piping systems are used in industrial plants subjected to any efforts. These components are
constituted by straight and curved or elbow elements. Elbows attached to nozzle or straight pipes
produce a stiffening effect due to the restraint of ovalization provided by the adjacent components.
These elements have a small thickness and when submitted to any efforts, the excessive oval shape
may reduce the structural resistance and can lead to structural collapse. The complexity of this
analysis will need some powerful and efficient numerical techniques with high computing
performance. This work presents the development of two different numerical models of a finite pipe
element with two nodal sections for mechanical analysis. The formulation presented is based on shell
displacement theory, where the displacement field is based in different polynomial functions or
trigonometric functions, for rigid beam displacement, and based in development Fourier series to
model warping and ovalization of pipe cross section, reported in Fonseca (2005), Thomson (1980)
and Melo (1992). Finite elements models presented in this work have been compared with some
numerical examples produced by other author (Thomas, 1981). Finally, some conclusions are
presented about the efficiency of these finite pipe element models.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Fonseca, E.M.M.; Melo, F.J.M.Q. de; Oliveira, C.A.M de (2005). Analysis of piping elbows in plane-bending using two different numerical models. In 7th Interamerican Congress on Computers Applied to the Process Industry. Vila Real.