Limit loads for piping branch junctions under internal pressure and in-plane bending—Extended solutions

The authors have previously proposed plastic limit load solutions for thin-walled branch junctions under internal pressure and in-plane bending, based on finite element (FE) limit loads resulting from three-dimensional (3-D) FE limit analyses using elastic–perfectly plastic materials [Kim YJ, Lee KH, Park CY. Limit loads for thin-walled piping branch junctions under internal pressure and in-plane bending. Int J Press Vessels Piping 2006;83:645–53]. The solutions are valid for ratios of the branch-to-run pipe radius and thickness from 0.4 to 1.0, and for the mean radius-to-thickness ratio of the run pipe from 10.0 to 20.0. Moreover, the solutions considered the case of in-plane bending only on the branch pipe. This paper extends the previous solutions in two aspects. Firstly, plastic limit load solutions are given also for in-plane bending on the run pipe. Secondly, the validity of the proposed solutions is extended to ratios of the branch-to-run pipe radius and thickness from 0.0 to 1.0, and the mean radius-to-thickness ratio of the run pipe from 5.0 to 20.0. Comparisons with FE results show good agreement.