Elastic-Plastic Design of Rectangular Pressure Tubing

Abstract

Elastic-plastic design permits the most effective use of the strength of the rectangular tube section. The condition of failure for a tube of perfectly elastic-plastic material is analyzed, and a formula is derived from which the limit load can be computed directly, A procedure is developed for determining by the area-moment method the wall deflection at any load from a bending-moment diagram modified to account for reduced rigidity. The total deflections thus found are plotted against the various loads. This theoretical load-deflection curve then becomes the basis for design.