Comparison of existing plastic collapse load solutions with experimental data for 90° elbows

This paper compares published experimental plastic collapse loads for 90° elbows with existing closed-form solutions. A total of 46 experimental data are considered, covering pure bending (in-plane closing, in-plane opening and out-of-plane bending) and combined pressure and bending loads. The plastic collapse load solutions considered are from the ASME code, the Ductile Fracture handbook of Zahoor, by Chattopadhyay and co-workers, and by Y.-J. Kim and co-workers. Comparisons with the experimental data shows that the ASME code solution is conservative by a factor of 2 on collapse load for in-plane closing bending, 2.3 for out-of-plane bending, and 3 for in-plane opening bending. The solutions given by Kim and co-workers give the least conservative estimates of plastic collapse loads, although they provide slightly non-conservative estimates for some data.

► We compare published 46 experimental data of plastic collapse loads for 90° elbows with existing four different plastic collapse load solutions.
► We find that the ASME code solution is conservative by a factor of 2–3, depending on the loading mode.
► We find that the solutions given by Kim and co-workers give the least conservative estimates of plastic collapse loads.