Effect of Yield Strength to Elastic Modulus Ratio on Finite Element Based Plastic Loads for Elbows Under Bending

This paper quantifies the effect of the yield strength-to-elastic modulus ratio (yield strain) on plastic loads (defined by the twice-elastic-slope according to the ASME code) for 90° elbows under in-plane and out-of-plane bending. Results are based on extensive and systematic FE limit analyses assuming elastic-perfectly plastic materials. Based on FE results, a simple approximation of plastic loads of pipe bends, incorporating the yield strength-to-elastic modulus ratio effect, is proposed. To validate the proposed approximation, predicted plastic moments are compared with published full-scale pipe test data, showing that the proposed approximation gives overall lower than the FE results and close to experimental values.