Investigation of the Effect of Adding a Support Sleeve to a Six-Bolt Steel Circular Pipe Connection Clip on Mechanical Properties

Abstract

In this study, the effect of adding a support sleeve for a pipe connection with 6 bolts of equivalent distance was investigated. The research was carried out with a package program that is widely used in finite element analysis. The lip geometry used for bolts and connection has been simplified for ease of analysis. As a material, steel with standard features was used in the models and static analyses were made. Factors that the connection may encounter most in operating conditions; The axial tension between the pipes, the internal pressure within the pipe and the bending effect with an applied moment were investigated. In addition, the pre-loading condition applicable to the bolts was applied as displacement to all 6 bolts for tensile condition and to 3 bolts subjected to tension for bending condition. In the results, the connection region was determined as the region where the stresses were concentrated under all different loading conditions and it was seen that the applied support sleeve did not show any benefit in reducing the stresses. It was determined that the preload applied to the bolts increased the stresses. Preloading only had a limited positive effect on the bending behaviour.