Plastic Limit Loads for Piping Branch Junctions

Abstract

The present work presents plastic limit load solutions for branch junctions under internal pressure and in-plane bending, based on detailed three-dimensional (3-D) FE limit analyses using elastic-perfectly plastic materials. The proposed solutions are valid for a wide range of branch junction geometries; ratios of the branch-to-run pipe radius and thickness from 0.0 to 1.0, and the mean radius-to-thickness ratio of the run pipe from 5.0 to 20.0.