Load Bearing Capacity of Through Wall Cracked Elbows: Comparison of Test Results With Calculation

Integrity assessment of piping components with postulated cracks is very important for safe and reliable operation of power plants. Pipe bends or elbows are one of the very important piping components in any power plant. The existing equations of limit load of elbows have various shortcomings. Additionally, the test data on elbows are not so abundant in the literature. Against this backdrop, a comprehensive experimental and analytical program has been undertaken at Reactor Safety Division (RSD) of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) to carry out fracture tests on through wall cracked elbows and also to propose new limit load formulas of through wall cracked elbow. The present paper describes the elbow test specimens, test set-up, test results, brief description of elastic-plastic finite element analysis, newly proposed collapse moment equations for through wall circumferentially cracked elbows and the comparison of test results with theoretical predictions.