Design of an Experimental Device for Simulation of Pipeline Expansion

Juraj Drga,Stanislav Gavlas,Michal Holubčík,R Lenhard,K Kaduchová

doi:10.1051/matecconf/202032803005

Abstract

This article describes the design of an experimental device for simulating pipe expansion. The device consisted of various variants of compensating elements and types of piping materials. Based on this, a 3D model was developed, together with numerical design calculations of compensators. Subsequently, a more complex analysis was performed by using the CAE Pipe calculation program, which performed calculations of dilatations, forces at fixed points and stresses in the pipeline.

Highlights

Thermal expansion causes stresses that can escalate to exceeding the allowable stress of the pipe material
The design of the pipeline network must consist of calculations of the pipe wall thickness and the allowable pipe stresses, which are complex calculations involving the effects of load conditions, operating conditions or properties of the materials used [2]
The essence of this article was the design of an experimental device for the simulation of pipe expansion, which will later be used as a teaching aid

Summary

Introduction

Thermal expansion causes stresses that can escalate to exceeding the allowable stress of the pipe material. The force that arises as the compressive force during expansion and the tensile force during shrinkage of the material, is stressful for the joints and supports of the pipeline network. The design of the pipeline network must consist of calculations of the pipe wall thickness and the allowable pipe stresses, which are complex calculations involving the effects of load conditions, operating conditions or properties of the materials used [2]. The designed device consisted of various types of compensators. These represented 3 types of natural compensator (“L” compensator, “Z” compensator and “U” compensator) and one variant of axial bellows compensator. Natural expansion joints were designed for 3 types of materials (polyethylene, galvanized steel and copper), for the variant with an axial bellows expansion joint, galvanized steel piping was considered. For the needs of the design, load conditions were considered as the effect of the self-weight of the pipeline (Empty weight - W1), the effect of temperature (Expansion - T1) and the effect of weight, pressure and temperature (Operating - W1 + P1 + T1)

Experimental device

Numerical calculations

Analysis of calculations in the CAE Pipe software

Conclusions