A Reference Stress Approach to Creep Bending of Straight Tubes

Abstract

Reference-stress parameters, based on the Norton constitutive equation, are developed for creep bending of circular and elliptical tubes. The parameters are presented in the form of a design chart. The reference stress methods apply also to other simple constitutive equations of the power law, exponential and hyperbolic sine forms, and also to two complex equations describing creep behaviour over the entire range from primary to tertiary. In these equations the functions of stress and time are not separable and reference stress techniques provide a convenient method of evaluating stationary stress distributions and investigating the variation of these stresses with time. Aluminium alloy tubes were creep tested with cyclic uniform bending moments. Creep strains to fracture were measured by an end-rotation method. The creep behaviour of the tubes was well predicted by reference-stress cyclic tensile creep tests.