Purpose The purpose of this paper is to quantify the combined effect of shape distortion and bend angle on the collapse loads of pipe bends exposed to internal pressure and in-plane closing bending moment. Non-linear finite element analysis with large displacement theory was performed considering the pipe bend material to be elastic perfectly plastic. Design/methodology/approach One half of the pipe bend model was built in ABAQUS. Shape distortion, namely, ovality (Co) and thinning (Ct), were each varied from 0% to 20% in steps of 5% and bend angle was varied from 30° to 180° in steps of 30°. Findings The findings show that ovality has a significant impact on collapse load. The effect of ovality decreases with an increase in bend angle for small thickness. The opposite effect was observed for large thickness pipe bends. The influence of ovality was more for higher bend angles. Ovality impact was almost negligible at certain internal pressure denoted as nullifying point (NP). The latter increased with an increase in pipe bend thickness and decreased with increase in pipe bend radius. For small bend angles one NP was observed where ovality impact is negligible and beyond this point the ovality effect increased. Two NPs were observed for large bend angles and ovality effect was maximum between the two NPs. Thinning yielded a minimal effect on collapse load except for small bend angles and bend radii. The influence of internal pressure on thinning was also negligible. Originality/value Influence of shape distortions and bend angle on collapse load of pipe bend exposed to internal pressure and in-plane closing bending has been not revealed in existing literature.

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This study uses a three-dimensional nonlinear finite-element method to investigate the effects of bend angle ([Formula: see text]) and shape imperfection on the collapse load of pipe bends subjected to in-plane opening bending moment using large displacement analysis. ABAQUS was used to create a pipe bend model, whereas by virtue of symmetry about the longitudinal axis, half of the pipe bend model was built. The bend angle was varied from 30° to 180° with an interval of 30°, and shape imperfections, namely ovality ( Co) and thinning ( Ct), were varied from 0% to 20% each at 5% intervals. Elastic-perfectly plastic is thought to be the material of choice for the pipe bend. The results show that the bend angle has a significant impact on the collapse load of pipe bends between 30° and 120°, after which a significant decline was observed. The ovality impact increases with an increase in bend angle for pipe bends with a large thickness, whereas the opposite effect was found for smaller thicknesses with a small bend radius. The effect of bend radius and thickness was significant for large bend angles. Thinning ( Ct) and thickening ( Cth) have no effect on collapse load. A new mathematical equation has been proposed to predict the integrated effect of bend angle and shape imperfection.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of structural deformations and bend angle on plastic collapse load of pipe bends under an in-plane closing bending moment (IPCM). A large strain formulation of three-dimensional non-linear finite element analysis was performed using an elastic perfectly plastic material. A unified mathematical solution was proposed to estimate the collapse load of pipe bends subjected to IPCM for the considered range of bend characteristics. Design/methodology/approach ABAQUS was used to create one half of the pipe bend model due to its symmetry on the longitudinal axis. Structural deformations, i.e. ovality (Co) and thinning (Ct) varied from 0% to 20% in 5% steps while the bend angle (ø) varied from 30° to 180° in steps of 30°. Findings The plastic collapse load decreases as the bend angle increase for all pipe bend models. A remarkable effect on the collapse load was observed for bend angles between 30° and 120° beyond which a decline was noticed. Ovality had a significant effect on the collapse load with this effect decreasing as the bend angle increased. The combined effect of thinning and bend angle was minimal for the considered models and the maximum per cent variation in collapse load was 5.76% for small bend angles and bend radius pipe bends and less than 2% for other cases. Originality/value The effect of structural deformations and bend angle on collapse load of pipe bends exposed to IPCM has been not studied in the existing literature.

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