The effect of cracks on the limit load of pipe bends under in-plane bending

The limit analysis of the in-plane bending of curved tubes had received attention previously, but the effect of defects in the tube has not been considered. A lower bound is established, which, with no defects present, is in agreement with previous theoretical work. The method of linear programming allows cracks to be introduced into the analysis. and results have been obtained for various geometries of defect. The results show that the presence of cracks in the pipe bend can have a marked effect on the theoretical limit load: a part-through crack penetrating only half the wall thickness will reduce the limit moment by up to 10%. The worst possible case of a through-crack may reduce the limit load by 60% (author)