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Nuclear Engineering and Design 238 (2008) 12751285
Effect of local wall thinning on the collapse behavior of pipe elbows
subjected to a combined internal pressure and in-plane bending load
Jin-Weon Kim
a,
, Man-Gyun Na
a
, Chi-Yong Park
b
a
Department of Nuclear Engineering, Chosun University, 375 Seosuk-dong, Dong-gu, Gwangju 501-579, Republic of Korea
b
Nuclear Power Laboratory, KEPRI, 103-16 Munji-dong, Yusung-gu, Daejeon, 305-380, Republic of Korea
Received 29 January 2007; received in revised form 1 October 2007; accepted 21 October 2007
Abstract
The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of local wall thinning on the collapse behavior of pipe elbows subjected to a combined
internal pressure and in-plane bending load. This study evaluated the global deformation behavior and collapse moment of the elbows, which
contained various types of local wall-thinning defects at their intrados or extrados, using three-dimensional elasticplastic nite element analysis.
The analysis results showed that the global deformation behavior of locally wall-thinned elbows was largely governed by the mode of the bending
and the elbow geometry rather than the wall-thinning parameters, except for elbows with considerably large and deep wall thinning that showed
plastic instabilities induced by local buckling and plastic collapsing in the thinned area. The reduction in the collapse moment with wall-thinning
depth was considerable when local buckling occurred in the thinned areas, whereas the effect of the thinning depth was small when ovalization
occurred. The effects of the circumferential thinning angle and thinning length on the collapse moment of elbows were not major for shallow wall-
thinning cases. For deeper wall-thinning cases, however, their effects were signicant and the dependence of collapse moment on the axial thinning
length was governed by the stress type applied to the wall-thinned area. Typically, the reduction in the collapse moment due to local wall thinning
was clearer when the thinning defect was located at the intrados rather than the extrados, and it was apparent for elbows with larger bend radius.
2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Pipe bends and elbows are employed in nuclear power plant
piping systems to allow modications to isometric routings.
They also play an important role in maintaining the integrity of
piping systems under transient loading conditions by absorbing
considerably large thermal expansions and seismic movements,
and by dissipating energy as a result of local plastic defor-
mation (Martzen and Yu, 1998; Shalaby and Younan, 1999;
Chattopadhyay, 2002). Since the pipe bends and elbows must be
designed to avoid a collapse at any loading condition, their col-
lapse load must be accurately estimated to ensure the reliability
of the piping systems during service.
Pipe bends and elbows in nuclear piping systems are sub-
jected to various degradation mechanisms. Carbon steel pipe
bends and elbows degrade greatly due to local wall thinning
from ow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) (Chexal et al., 1998;

Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 62 230 7109; fax: +82 62 232 9218.
E-mail address: jwkim@chosun.ac.kr (J.-W. Kim).
Kuen and Yin, 1999). Local wall thinning in piping components
reduces the failure pressure, load-carrying capacity, deforma-
tion ability, and fatigue resistance of the piping system (JAERI,
1993; Miyazaki et al., 1999; Ahn et al., 2002; Hasegawa et al.,
2002; Kim and Park, 2003). Thus, it is important to evaluate
the effect of local wall thinning on the structural integrity of
piping components and to develop an integrity evaluation pro-
cedure. Several experimental and analytical studies have been
carried out to investigate the effect of local wall thinning on the
integrity of nuclear piping components (JAERI, 1993; Miyazaki
et al., 1999; Wilkowski et al., 2000; Hasegawa et al., 2002; Kim
and Park, 2003, 2005; Shim et al., 2003), and integrity evalua-
tion procedures for local wall-thinned piping components have
been proposed based on these studies. However, most of the
procedures focus on local wall thinning in straight piping com-
ponents. The effect of local wall thinning on the integrity of pipe
bends and elbows has not yet been systematically investigated,
even though local wall thinning due to FAC occurs frequently
(Chexal et al., 1998; Kuen and Yin, 1999).
The objective of this study was to systematically investigate
the effect of local wall thinning on the integrity of pipe elbows
0029-5493/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.nucengdes.2007.10.017
1276 J.-W. Kim et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 238 (2008) 12751285
Fig. 1. Dimensions of a wall-thinned pipe elbow.
under a combined internal pressure and in-plane bending load.
Thus, nonlinear three-dimensional nite element analyses were
performed on elbows containing various types of local wall thin-
ning at their intrados or extrados. These elbows were subjected
to in-plane bending with a constant internal pressure. The effects
of local wall thinning on the global deformation behavior of the
elbows were investigated by comparing the moment versus end-
rotation curves under various conditions. The collapse moment
was also evaluated, and its dependence on the wall-thinning
parameters, such as the thinning depth, length, circumferential
angle, and defect location, was investigated for different bending
modes and elbow geometries.
2. Evaluation procedures
2.1. Analysis conditions
Finite element analyses were performed on a 90

elbow with
an outer diameter of 400 mmand a nominal thickness of 20 mm.
Two bend radii, R
b
/r
m
=3 and 6, were considered to take into
account the effect of the elbow geometry, where R
b
is the bend
radius and r
m
is the mean radius of the elbow, as depicted in
Fig. 1. The wall-thinning location, which is governed by the ow
patterns of the uid in the pipe elbows, may inuence the col-
lapse behavior of wall-thinned elbows. Therefore, we assumed
that local wall thinning was located at the extrados and intrados
centerlines of the elbow, and that the axial and circumferential
shapes of the defects were circular. The dimensions of the wall-
thinning defects used in the analyses are listed in Table 1. These
dimensions indicate the areas over which the wall thickness was
Fig. 2. Finite element model used in the analyses.
thinner than the minimumthickness (t
min
) required by construc-
tion codes (ASME, 1995a,c). In the table, L is the equivalent
axial thinning length dened at the ank of the elbow, as shown
in Fig. 1, and t
nom
and t
p
are the nominal thickness and minimum
thickness of the wall-thinned area, respectively.
The combined internal pressure and bending load were con-
sidered in the analysis as applied loads. The magnitude of the
internal pressure was 10 MPa. Both closing- and opening-mode
in-plane bending were investigated.
2.2. Finite element models
Fig. 2 illustrates the three-dimensional nite element models
employed in the analyses. The model consisted of 20 node-break
elements with a reduced integration order. Only one-fourth of
the elbow was modeled by considering its geometrical sym-
metry. The elbow was connected to straight pipes with lengths
equal to 10 times the mean pipe radius (10 r
m
) to permit free
ovalization of the elbow end-section (Martzen and Yu, 1998;
Robertson et al., 2005). As shown in Fig. 2, the model used 20
elements along the circumference, 14 elements along the bend,
8 elements along the straight pipe, and 3 elements across the
thickness. We assumed the end of the straight pipe was end-
capped by a beam to apply a bending moment and an internal
Table 1
Matrix for the nite element analysis of a wall-thinned elbow
Location Loading type Bend radius, R
b
/r
m
Thinning length, L/D
o
Maximum thinning depth, (t
nom
t
p
)/t
nom
Thinning angle, /
Extrados Closing 3 0.25 0.301 0.0625
Intrados Opening 6 0.5 0.417 0.125
1.0 0.534 0.25
2.0 0.641 0.50
0.767
J.-W. Kim et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 238 (2008) 12751285 1277
Fig. 3. True stress vs. true strain curve used in the nite element analyses.
pressure, which was modeled using two layers of solid elements.
Appropriate boundary conditions were used along the planes of
symmetry at the edges of the one-quarter model. The bending
moment was appliedas anin-plane rotational displacement tothe
articial center node, which was assigned a multipoint constraint
at the end-plane of the beam. Thus, the moment and end-rotation
could be obtained from the reaction moment and rotational dis-
placement at this node. The internal pressure was applied to the
inner surface of the elbow, attached pipe, and end-capped beam
as a distributed load.
The general-purpose ABAQUS nite element analysis pro-
gram (Hibbitt et al., 2005) was used for this study. Both
geometric and material nonlinearities were considered to model
the large deformation due to local buckling and ovalization
at the bend region that contained the wall-thinning defect
and to model the plastic behavior of the material. A previ-
ous study demonstrated that geometrical nonlinearity in the
nite element analysis are very important when attempting to
precisely determine the pipe bend deection for various com-
binations of closing- and opening-mode bending and internal
pressures (Chattopadhyay, 2002). The yield and ultimate tensile
stresses of the selected elbow and attached pipe material were
302 MPa and 452 MPa, respectively, while the elastic modu-
lus and the Poisson ratio were 206 GPa and 0.3, respectively.
Fig. 3 shows the true stress versus true strain curve used in the
analyses.
2.3. Denition of the elbow collapse moment
The collapse moment of elbows subjected to in-plane bend-
ing can be dened by various methods (Shalaby and Younan,
1999; Yahiaoui et al., 2000; Robertson et al., 2005). We obtained
the collapse moment using the twice the elastic slope (TES)
method from the moment (M
b
) versus end-rotation () curves.
Thus, the collapse moment was determined from the intersec-
tion between the TES line and moment versus rotation curve.
The TES line was dened as a straight line from the origin with
twice the slope of the initial elastic response of the moment ver-
sus rotation curve, as illustrated in Fig. 4(a). This is the easiest
method to use and its results are the most reproducible (Yahiaoui
et al., 2000). It is also recommended by the ASME B&PV
code Sec. VIII Div. 2 (ASME, 1995b). When this intersec-
tion was located beyond the maximum moment, the maximum
moment was taken as the collapse moment, as shown in
Fig. 4(b).
3. Effect of local wall thinning on the collapse behavior
of elbows
3.1. Global deformation behavior of wall-thinned elbows
3.1.1. Defect-free elbows
We examined moment versus end-rotation curves of defect-
free sound elbows subjected to in-plane bending with an internal
pressure to clarify the dependence of the deformation behavior
of pipe elbows on the elbowgeometry and bending mode prior to
investigating locally wall-thinned pipe elbows. Fig. 5 shows the
moment versus end-rotation curves for defect-free sound elbows
with R
b
/r
m
=3 and 6 during in-plane closing- and opening-mode
bending with a constant internal pressure of 10 MPa. The elas-
tic response was almost the same for both bend radii, and the
difference was mainly in the plastic response. For closing-mode
bending, the moment versus end-rotation curves became almost
Fig. 4. Collapse moment of a pipe elbow: (a) Twice the elastic slope (TES) method and (b) maximum moment.
1278 J.-W. Kim et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 238 (2008) 12751285
Fig. 5. Dependence of the moment vs. end-rotationbehavior of defect-free sound
elbows on the bending mode and bend radius.
at after the applied bending rotation exceeded a certain limit.
However, when the same elbow was subjected to opening-mode
bending, the moment versus end-rotation curves had a positive
slope that was greater for the elbow with a smaller bend radius.
In the plastic region, the moment versus end-rotation curve was
always greater for opening-mode bending than for closing-mode
bending. In addition, the higher the bend radius was, the higher
the moments were for both modes of bending. The difference of
the moment versus end-rotation curves between bending modes
diminished as the bend radius increased. In all cases, no plastic
instabilities occurred over the range of bending deformations
considered.
According to prior studies (Martzen and Yu, 1998; Shalaby
and Younan, 1998, 1999; Chattopadhyay, 2002), the saturation
of the moment during closing-mode bending occurs because
the cross-sectional area of the elbow is ovalized to atten the
shape such that its moment of inertia is reduced. The increasing
moment duringopening-mode bendingoccurs because the bend-
ing load opens the elbow so that its cross-sectional moment of
inertia becomes larger. Thus, the geometrical effect of the elbow
causes it to weaken or stiffen when subjected to in-plane bend-
ing. This effect decreases with increasing bend radius so that
the bending moment increases with the bend radius while the
discrepancy of the moment versus end-rotation curves between
bending modes is reduced.
3.1.2. Locally wall-thinned elbows
Fig. 6 shows moment versus end-rotation curves for
elbows with local wall thinning and dimensions of L/D
o
=1.0,
(t
nom
t
p
)/t
nom
=0.534, and / =0.50. As shown in Fig. 6(a),
except for the case with R
b
/r
m
=6 subjected to opening-mode
bending, the extrados wall-thinned elbow curves were similar
to the defect-free sound elbow curves shown in Fig. 5, even
though the moment was slightly lower in most cases. In the
case of R
b
/r
m
=6 subjected to opening-mode bending, the plas-
tic curve initially increased and then decreased above a critical
end-rotation. Thus, instability occurred in the global deforma-
tion behavior of the locally wall-thinned elbow. For intrados
Fig. 6. Moment vs. end-rotation curves for locally wall-thinned elbows: (a)
extrados and (b) intrados.
wall-thinned elbows (see Fig. 6(b)), the overall patterns of the
moment versus end-rotation curves were also similar to those
of the defect-free sound elbows. However, both elbows with
R
b
/r
m
=3 during opening-mode bending and with R
b
/r
m
=6 dur-
ing closing-mode bending showed an instability in the moment
versus end-rotation curve. This instability was also observed
for other wall-thinning defect analysis cases with elbows
containing longer, deeper, and larger circumferential angles sub-
jected to a compressive stress and elbows containing shorter,
deeper, and larger circumferential angles subjected to a tensile
stress.
Usually, the plastic instability in elbows during in-plane
bending is a global structural instability associated with a major
change in the shape of the cross-sectional area. It appears in
higher deformed regions of defect-free sound elbows. How-
ever, the instability appeared in much lower deformed regions
of elbows with local wall thinning. This plastic instability is
associated with local buckling at wall-thinned areas subjected
to compressive stresses and with local plastic collapsing at
wall-thinned areas subjected to tensile stresses, as shown in
Figs. 7 and 8, which give the deformation shapes of a wall-
thinned elbow cross-sectional area at the extrados and intrados,
J.-W. Kim et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 238 (2008) 12751285 1279
Fig. 7. Deformation shapes of elbow cross sections containing local wall thinning at the extrados under closing- and opening-mode bending ( =0.1 radian). (a)
Closing-mode, R
b
/r
m
=3.0; (b) closing-mode, R
b
/r
m
=6.0; (c) opening-mode, R
b
/r
m
=3.0 and (d) opening-mode, R
b
/r
m
=6.0.
respectively. In Fig. 7, the cross section buckled locally at the
extrados wall-thinned area for R
b
/r
m
=6 during opening-mode
bending; the cross sections were ovalized for the other wall-
thinned elbows. In Fig. 8, the cross section buckled locally
at the intrados wall-thinned area for R
b
/r
m
=6 during closing-
mode bending, and locally collapsed (abnormal stretching of
elements) for R
b
/r
m
=3 during opening-mode bending. These
ndings are consistent with the instability observations for the
moment versus end-rotation curves shown in Fig. 6.
These results demonstrate that for in-plane bending with a
constant internal pressure, the global deformation behavior of
locally wall-thinned elbows was mainly governed by the mode
of bending and the elbow geometry, as shown by the defect-free
sound elbows. This was also true for most elbows with local wall
thinning in the bend region. For elbows with considerably larger
and deeper wall thinning, however, the plastic instabilities asso-
ciated with local buckling and plastic collapsing in the thinned
area occurred in the early stages of the bending deformation and
thus their global deformation behavior deviated from that of the
defect-free sound elbows.
3.2. Collapse moments of locally wall-thinned elbows
The collapse moments of the wall-thinned elbows were eval-
uated for various thinning depths, lengths, and circumferential
angles to quantitatively investigate the effect of local wall thin-
ning on the elbow integrity. The dependence of the collapse
moments on the defect geometry was also investigated for dif-
ferent thinning locations, bending modes, and bend radii. The
results were quantied by the weakening factor (w), dened by
the collapse moment of a wall-thinned elbow (M
C
) normalized
by the collapse moment of a defect-free sound elbow (M
C,NT
)
with the same geometry
w =
M
C
M
C,NT
(1)
This factor indicates the weakening effect of local wall thinning
on the collapse of pipe elbows compared to defect-free sound
elbows. The weakeningeffect of wall thinningis negligible as the
weakening factor approaches one, and the effect is considerable
as the weakening factor approaches zero.
3.2.1. Effect of the wall-thinning depth
Fig. 9 shows the weakening factor of elbows with local wall
thinning at their extrados and intrados as a function of the
thinning depth. The weakening factor was evaluated for ve dif-
ferent thinning depths at a constant thinning angle (/ =0.5)
and length (L/D
0
=1.0). Regardless of the thinning location,
the weakening factor decreased parabolically with increasing
thinning depths. A signicant reduction occurred in the weak-
1280 J.-W. Kim et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 238 (2008) 12751285
Fig. 8. Deformation shapes of elbow cross sections containing local wall thinning at the intrados under closing- and opening-mode bending ( =0.1 radian). (a)
Closing-mode, R
b
/r
m
=3.0, (b) closing-mode, R
b
/r
m
=6.0, (c) opening-mode, R
b
/r
m
=3.0 and (d) opening-mode, R
b
/r
m
=6.0.
ening factor with thinning depth for elbows with larger bend
radii (R
b
/r
m
=6) for both bending modes. For the extrados wall-
thinning cases, the effect of the thinning depth on the weakening
factor was clearer during opening-mode bending compared to
closing-mode bending, whereas this tendency was reversed for
the intrados wall-thinningcases. This indicates that the reduction
in the weakening factor with thinning depth was more substan-
tial when the wall-thinned area was subjected to a compressive
stress rather than a tensile stress.
However, the inuences of bending radius and bending mode
were small, except for the wall-thinned elbow with R
b
/r
m
=6
that was subjected to a compressive stress, in which the weak-
ening factor was considerably reduced with increasing thinning
depths. This reduction was associated with the occurrence of
local buckling in the thinned area, as discussed in the previous
section. According to prior studies on a wall-thinned straight
pipe (Kim and Park, 2003; Shim et al., 2003), the suscepti-
bility to local buckling at a thinned area under compressive
stress was appraisable for longer wall thinning (L/D
0
0.5),
and the reduction in the collapse moment induced by local buck-
ling was considerable compared to that induced by local plastic
collapsing. Consequently, the collapse moment of wall-thinned
elbows decreased parabolically with increasing wall-thinning
depth. The effect of the wall-thinning depth on the collapse
moment was signicant under conditions at which local buck-
ling occurred in the thinned area. However, when ovalization
occurred in the thinned area, the effect was small and less sen-
sitive to the bending mode and bend radius.
3.2.2. Effect of the circumferential wall-thinning angle
Figs. 10 and 11 show the weakening factor for the L/D
0
=1.0
elbows with local wall thinning at their extrados and intrados,
respectively, as functions of the circumferential thinning angle
for three different thinning depths. For a small thinning angle
(/ =0.0625), the weakening factors were similar for all thin-
ning depths, regardless of the thinning location, bending mode,
and bend radius. This shows that the effect of local wall thin-
ning on the collapse moment of an elbow is negligible for an
in-plane bending load with a constant internal pressure unless
the thinning defect has a sizable circumferential angle, even
when the defect has considerable depth. For elbows with shal-
low wall thinning at an extrados [(t
nom
t
p
)/t
p
0.534], shown
in Fig. 10, the weakening factor decreased almost linearly as
the circumferential thinning angle increased from / =0.0625
to 0.5. The variation of the weakening factor with the thin-
ning angle was small, less than 10%. However, for elbows with
deeper wall thinning at an extrados [(t
nom
t
p
)/t
nom
=0.767],
the weakening factor decreased parabolically with increasing
J.-W. Kim et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 238 (2008) 12751285 1281
Fig. 9. Variations in the weakening factor with the wall-thinning depth for
different bending modes and bend radii: (a) extrados and (b) intrados.
circumferential thinning angles. This reduction was comparable
to that observed previously with the thinning depth. In particu-
lar, the reduction with thinning angle was considerable during
opening-mode bending when a compressive stress was applied
to the thinned area. For the intrados wall-thinning cases, the
overall dependence of the weakening factor on the circumfer-
ential thinning angle was also similar to that observed for the
extrados wall-thinning cases (see Fig. 11). However, the effect of
the thinning angle on the weakening factor was more consider-
able during closing-mode bending, in contrast with the extrados
wall-thinning cases.
Previous studies showed that the effect of the circumfer-
ential thinning angle on the failure of wall-thinned elbows
subjected to an internal pressure was negligible compared to
the effect of the thinning depth and length (Li et al., 2001; Kim
et al., 2005). Thus, the circumferential thinning angle has been
neglected in failure pressure evaluation models (Li et al., 2001).
However, the present results demonstrate that the effect of cir-
cumferential thinning angle on the collapse moment of locally
wall-thinned elbows subjected to in-plane bending was compa-
rable to the effect of the thinning depth and length for deeper
Fig. 10. Variations in the weakening factor with the circumferential thinning
angle for extrados wall-thinned elbows: (a) R
b
/r
m
=3.0 and (b) R
b
/r
m
=6.0.
wall-thinning cases. The failure of wall-thinned piping com-
ponents subjected to internal pressure is dominated by hoop
stresses in the thinned area (Fu and Kirkwood, 1995; Li et al.,
2001), and thus the failure pressure is largely dependent on
the thinning length and depth rather than the circumferential
thinning angle. However, the collapse of an elbow subjected
to in-plane bending is dominated by deformations in the bend
region, which are governed by the stiffness of the elbow cross
section. The stiffness of the cross section is inuenced by the
circumferential thinning angle as well as the thinning depth
and length. It changes dramatically when local buckling and
local plastic collapsing occur in the thinned area. Thus, the
signicant reduction in the weakening factor with increasing
circumferential thinning angle for the deeper wall-thinning
cases was related to the higher susceptibility to local buck-
ling and plastic collapsing in the thinned area during in-plane
bending.
These results demonstrate that the effect of the circumfer-
ential thinning angle on the collapse moment of wall-thinned
elbows is considerable for deeper wall-thinning cases that are
1282 J.-W. Kim et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 238 (2008) 12751285
Fig. 11. Variations in the weakening factor with the circumferential thinning
angle for intrados wall-thinned elbows: (a) R
b
/r
m
=3.0 and (b) R
b
/r
m
=6.0.
susceptible to local buckling and local plastic collapsing. This
effect is comparable to that of the thinning depth and length.
When considering in-plane bending as an applied load, there-
fore, the circumferential thinning angle must be regarded as a
key parameter, along with the wall-thinning depth and length,
in integrity evaluations of local wall-thinned elbows.
3.2.3. Effect of the wall-thinning length
Figs. 12 and 13 show the variation of the weakening fac-
tor with the axial thinning length at the extrados and intrados,
respectively, of elbows with local wall thinning of / =0.5.
As shown in Fig. 12, for elbows with shallow wall thinning
at their extrados [(t
nom
t
p
)/t
nom
0.534], the weakening fac-
tor decreased almost linearly with increasing axial lengths of
the wall thinning, regardless of the bend radius and bending
mode. This decrease was less than10%, eventhoughthe thinning
length increased from L/D
o
=0.25 to 2.0. However, elbows with
deeper wall thinning [(t
nom
t
p
)/t
nom
=0.767] had a different
dependence on the axial thinning length. During opening-mode
bending, the weakening factor decreased exponentially as the
axial thinning length increased. For elbows with R
b
/r
m
=6 sub-
Fig. 12. Variations in the weakening factor with the axial thinning angle for
extrados wall-thinned elbows: (a) R
b
/r
m
=3.0 and (b) R
b
/r
m
=6.0.
jected to closing-mode bending, the weakening factor initially
increased with the axial thinning length and then decreased
with further increases in the axial thinning length. Therefore,
belowa critical length, the weakening effect of the wall-thinning
defect was enhanced by decreasing the axial thinning length,
although it was typically enhanced by increasing the thinning
length.
For intrados wall-thinned elbows, shown in Fig. 13, the over-
all dependence of the weakening factor on the axial thinning
length was similar to that obtained for extrados wall-thinned
elbows. The weakening factor decreased linearly with increas-
ing axial lengths of shallow wall thinning. For deeper wall
thinning [(t
nom
t
p
)/t
nom
=0.767], however, the weakening fac-
tor decreased exponentially with increasing thinning lengths
during closing-mode bending, and increased initially and then
decreasedwithincreasingaxial thinninglengths duringopening-
mode bending, as observed for the extrados wall-thinned elbows
subjected to closing-mode bending. Therefore, for both bend
radii, the weakening factor during opening-mode bending was
less than that obtained during closing-mode bending for shorter
J.-W. Kim et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 238 (2008) 12751285 1283
Fig. 13. Variations in the weakening factor with the axial thinning angle for
intrados wall-thinned elbows: (a) R
b
/r
m
=3.0 and (b) R
b
/r
m
=6.0.
wall-thinning defects (L/D
o
<1.0). This trend was reversed for
longer wall-thinning defects (L/D
o
1.0).
In Figs. 12 and 13, the weakening factor exponentially
decreased with increasing axial thinning lengths when deeper
wall thinning was subjected to a compressive stress. This
was associated with the susceptibility to local buckling in the
thinning area, as discussed in the previous section. This sus-
ceptibility was enhanced by increasing the axial wall-thinning
length (Kim and Park, 2003; Shim et al., 2003). Also, the col-
lapse moment decreased considerably and then saturated with
increasing axial lengths of the wall thinning under conditions
that caused local buckling. Therefore, the exponential decrease
in the weakening factor with the axial thinning length during
compressive stresses was related to this higher susceptibility of
local buckling for longer wall-thinning areas. However, when
deeper wall thinning was subjected to tensile stresses, the weak-
ening factor increased with the axial thinning length and then
decreased above a critical wall-thinning length. This behavior
has also been observed in straight pipes with deeper wall thin-
ning (Kimand Park, 2003; Shimet al., 2003). Usually, the stress
concentration is minor in the wall-thinned area, but for a deeper
wall thinning, it becomes considerable with decreasing axial
thinning lengths subjected to tensile stresses (Kim and Son,
2004). Therefore, the enhanced weakening effect belowa critical
wall-thinning length was related to higher stress concentrations
in the thinned area because the higher tensile stresses promoted
local plastic collapsing that considerably reduced the collapse
moment of the elbow.
These results demonstrate that the collapse moment of shal-
low wall-thinned elbow decreased almost linearly with the axial
thinning length and the decreasing with thinning length was
small, regardless of bending mode and bend radius. However, for
deep wall-thinning cases, the effect of the axial thinning length
on the collapse moment was dependent on the bending mode
and defect location. The variation in the collapse moment with
the axial length of the wall thinning was considerable. Unfortu-
nately, the existing evaluation procedure for locally wall-thinned
elbows only considers the circumferential thinning angle and
bend radius as inuencing parameters when determining the
acceptance criteria (ASME, 2003). Therefore, improvements of
the evaluation procedure are required for locally wall-thinned
elbows; the effect of the axial wall-thinning length on the col-
lapse behavior of the elbows observed in this study should be
appropriately incorporated into the procedure.
3.2.4. Effect of the wall-thinning location and bend radius
The effects of the wall-thinning depth, circumferential angle,
and length on the collapse moment of wall-thinned elbows were
investigated in the previous sections. We found that the typi-
cal reduction in the collapse moment due to local wall thinning
was more sensitive to the thinning dimensions when the wall-
thinning defect was located at the intrados rather than extrados,
even though it was dependent on the bending mode. This is
associated with the different stress states between the intrados
and extrados of elbows during in-plane bending. Fig. 14 shows
the equivalent stress distributions along the circumference of
a defect-free sound elbow with R
b
/r
m
=3 subjected to in-plane
closing- and opening-mode bending ( =0.1 radian) with a con-
stant internal pressure of 10 MPa. The equivalent stress in the
Fig. 14. Stress distribution along the circumference of defect-free sound elbows
during in-plane bending.
1284 J.-W. Kim et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 238 (2008) 12751285
intrados region was greater than that in the extrados region,
regardless of the bending mode, indicating that the intrados
regionwas weaker andmore sensitive tothe existence of a defect.
Therefore, when the wall thinning is located at the intrados, the
weakening effect is greater and more sensitive to changes in the
thinning dimensions.
For elbows with larger bend radii, the weakening effect due
to local wall thinning was signicant and sensitive to the defect
geometries. These are related to the different elbow geometries,
which govern the collapse behavior during in-plane bending.
Typically, the geometric effects diminishes with increasing bend
radii; that is, the weakening or stiffening effects during in-plane
bending decreases with increasing bend radii. For elbows with
larger bend radii, the inuence of local wall thinning on the
collapse behavior is relatively clear, and the collapse moment
is sensitive to the wall-thinning geometry. However, for elbows
with shorter bend radii, the geometrical effects dominate their
collapse behavior so that the effect of local wall thinning is
relatively minor. Thus, the reduction in the collapse moment
due to local wall thinning is less sensitive to changes in the
wall-thinning dimensions.
4. Conclusions
Three-dimensional elasticplastic nite element analyses
were performed on locally wall-thinned elbows subjected to in-
plane bending with a constant internal pressure to investigate
the effect of the wall thinning on the integrity of the elbows.
The effects of wall-thinning parameters, such as the thinning
depth, length, circumferential angle, and location, and the bend
radius, on the collapse behavior of wall-thinned elbows were
investigated. The following conclusions were drawn.
(1) The global deformation behavior of locally wall-thinned
elbows was largely governed by the mode of the bending and
the elbowgeometry, evenwhenlocal wall thinningexistedin
the bend region of the elbow. For elbows with considerably
large and deep wall thinning, however, plastic instabilities
caused by the global bending deformation occurred in the
earlystages of the bendingdeformation. These were induced
by local buckling and plastic collapsing in the thinned
area.
(2) The collapse moment of wall-thinned elbows parabolically
decreased with increasing wall-thinning depths, regardless
of the thinning location and bend radius. This decrease was
considerable when local buckling occurred in the thinned
areas. However, when ovalization occurred, the effect of the
thinning depth was small and less sensitive to the bending
mode and bend radius.
(3) For shallow wall-thinning cases, the collapse moment of
the wall-thinned elbow decreased almost linearly with
increasing circumferential thinning angles and axial thin-
ning lengths. The effects of the circumferential thinning
angle and thinning length on the collapse moment were not
major.
(4) For deeper wall-thinning cases, the effects of the circum-
ferential thinning angle and thinning length on the collapse
moment were considerable. In particular, the variation with
the axial thinning length was dependent on the bend-
ing mode and thinning location. As the axial thinning
length increased, the collapse moment decreased expo-
nentially when the elbow was subjected to a compressive
stress in the thinned area. However, the collapse moment
initially increased and then decreased above a critical thin-
ning length when the elbow was subjected to a tensile
stress.
(5) Typically, the reduction in the collapse moment due to local
wall thinning was clearer when the thinning was located
at the intrados rather than the extrados, even though it was
dependent on the bending mode. The weakening effect due
to local wall thinning increased with the bend radius of the
pipe elbow.
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