Determination of C2 Stress Index of Back-to-Back Welded Piping Bends Using Finite Element Method

Abstract

In current ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, the C2 stress index for back-to-back elbows welded together is taken as the product of the C2 index of the elbow and the C2 index of the girth butt weld. In recent years, many finite element analyses studies have been conducted on the elbow C2 index itself which have found that the code C2 value is conservative. The girth butt weld C2 given in the code resulted from analytical studies on transition joint between two straight pipes. While the code considers that the secondary stress due to the weld reinforcement including the effect from the mismatch to be small and practically negligible for a thick pipe, it recommends a formula to calculate C2 for weld in a thin pipe of thickness less than 0.237”. The purpose of this paper is to present an approach that C2 caused by weld mismatch can be determined by finite element analysis. Back-to-back bends are modeled with 2 typical configurations: in-plane and out-of-plane. Parametric studies of linear elastic secondary stresses are carried out to determine the “worst possible” two bend central line mismatch. The stress indices at elbows and weld location are established. It is found that the C2 index based on the code formula is overly conservative for back-to-back welded pipe bends and the multiplication by the C2 index of the weld is not needed.