Influence of ovalisation on the plastic collapse of thick cylindrical tubes under uniform bending

The goal of this computational study is to quantify the extent to which geometrically nonlinear effects, specifically ovalisation and bifurcation buckling, may depress the resistance of a thick perfect cylinder under uniform bending that would otherwise be expected to attain the full plastic moment. Simulations are performed using two- and three-dimensional finite element models with a simple ideal elastic-plastic material law that excludes the influence of strain hardening. The study aims to arm designers of test programmes on the bending of tubulars with 'rules of thumb' to approximately quantify the likely influence of tube length on their results, recently shown to be an important parameter controlling geometric nonlinearity. For thick tubes, ovalisation at the plastic limit state under bending is found to be almost negligible.