Development of finite element analysis program and simplified formulas of bellows and shape optimization

Abstract

Bellows is a component in piping systems which absorbs mechanical deformation with flexibility. Its geometry is an axial symmetric shell which consists of two toroidal shells and one annular plate or conical shell. In order to analyze bellows, this study presents the finite element analysis using a conical frustum shell element. A finite element analysis is developed to analyze various bellows. The validity of the developed program is verified by the experimental results for axial and lateral stiffness. The formula for calculating the natural frequency of bellows is made by the simple beam theory. The formula for fatigue life is also derived by experiments. The shape optimal design problem is formulated using multiple objective optimization. The multiple objective functions are transformed to a scalar function by weighting factors. The stiffness, strength and specified stiffness are considered as the multiple objective function. The formulation has inequality constraints imposed on the fatigue limit, the natural frequencies, and the manufacturing conditions. Geometric parameters of bellows are the design variables. The recursive quadratic programming algorithm is selected to solve the problem. The results are compared to existing bellows, and the characteristics of bellows is investigated through optimal design process. The optimized shape of bellows is expected to give quite a good guideline to practical design.