Experimental Study on the Characteristics of Bolted Pipe Flange Connection Under Bending Moment and Internal Pressure

Abstract

Abstract After a bolted gasketed pipe flange connection is assembled, the pipe flange connection is usually subjected to some additional loads such as bending moment, own weight, wind load and so on. These additional loads will lead to changing the axial bolt force distribution of the pipe flange connection and the distribution will become more and more scattered. As a result, the minimum residual axial bolt force will be much smaller and the minimum contact gasket stress will decrease, so a leakage is easy to occur in the connection. In special cases such as earthquakes, the bolted pipe flange connection is usually subjected to a high bending moment. Then sometimes leakage accidents occur. In order to promote the safety of the connections and to avoid them being broken under the earthquakes, in the present paper, the equivalent pressure and the assembly efficiency in the pipe flange connection of class 150 4″ are measured experimentally. The leak rates of the connection using spiral-wound gasket when a bending moment was applied or not applied were measured to elicit the equivalent pressure. Moreover, some tightening procedures such as JIS B 2251, ASME PCC-1 Legacy and GB/T 38343 were applied to tighten the pipe flange connection. The axial bolt force distribution, the assembly efficiency based on the target axial bolt force and the assembly efficiency based on tightness parameter of the connection when bending moment was applied or not applied were measured, and the results are compared. As a result, the equivalent pressure under a given bending moment is obtained, and a difference of the equivalent pressure between our results and Kellogg’s results is demonstrated. In addition, the new assembly efficiency based on the tightness parameter is also measured under a given bending moment as well as internal pressure. Using the equivalent pressure and the assembly efficiency obtained in the present paper, a new design will be possible for pipe flange connections under bending moment.