The assessment of elastic follow-up in high temperature piping systems - overall survey and theoretical aspects

A review in some detail is presented, of simple and approximate methods for the assessment of elastic follow-up, to suggest possible modifications to the available methods to make them more appropriate for design purposes and to present a possible route for design based on simplified methods. An overall survey is given and the theoretical aspects of the various methods described in detail. In the second part of this paper these methods are compared to more exact solutions obtained by finite element analysis for a number of simple piping configurations subject to creep. (author)