Collapse Characteristics of a Thin-Walled Elbow: Validation of an Analytical Procedure

Abstract

A nonlinear analysis procedure is validated in this paper to predict deformation response, up to collapse, of thin-walled Liquid Metal Reactor (LMR) piping elbows. Nonlinear shell analysis predictions are compared with experimental measurements of two full-scale large diameter (406 mm), thin-walled (D /t = 38), piping elbows tested at room temperature and at an elevated temperature in the Multi-Load Test Facility (MLTF) at Westinghouse. The overall and local deformation predictions agree very well with the measured deformation responses up to 60 percent of the measured plastic collapse moment, M pc e . The analytical-experimental correlation is reasonable up to 0.8 M pc e . At higher load levels the correlation is not as good; at collapse the analysis overpredicts measured deformations by as much as 30 percent.