Pipe-anchor discontinuity analysis utilizing power series solutions, Bessel functions, and Fourier series

Abstract One of the paradigmatic classes of problems that frequently arise in piping stress analysis discipline is the effect of local stresses created by supports and restraints attachments. Over the past 20 years, concerns have been identified by both regulatory agencies in the nuclear power industry and others in the process and chemicals industries concerning the effect of various stiff clamping arrangements on the expected life of the pipe and its various piping components. In many of the commonly utilized geometries and arrangements of pipe clamps, the elasticity problem becomes the axisymmetric stress and deformation determination in a hollow cylinder (pipe) subjected to the appropriate boundary conditions and respective loads per se. One of the geometries that serve as a pipe anchor is comprised of two pipe clamps that are bolted tightly to the pipe and affixed to a modified shoe-type arrangement. The shoe is employed for the purpose of providing an immovable base that can be easily attached either by bolting or welding to a structural steel pipe rack. Over the past 50 years, the computational tools available to the piping analyst have changed dramatically and thereby have caused the implementation of solutions to the basic problems of elasticity to change likewise. The need to obtain closed form elasticity solutions, however, has always been a driving force in engineering. The employment of symbolic calculus that is currently available through numerous software packages makes closed form solutions very economical. This paper briefly traces the solutions over the past 50 years to a variety of axisymmetric stress problems involving hollow circular cylinders employing a Fourier series representation. In the present example, a properly chosen Fourier series represent the mathematical simulation of the imposed axial displacements on the outside diametrical surface. A general solution technique is introduced for the axisymmetric discontinuity stresses resulting from an anchor restraint on a selected of pipe geometry. These solutions can be economically implemented on today's symbolic calculus software packages with no loss in solution accuracy when compared to often more expensive techniques such as the finite element method. Verification of the axisymmetric solution technique is illustrated by the comparison of results for the closed form solutions versus those approximated by the finite element technique. Extensions of the general axisymmetric solution technique to other geometries and applied loads are also discussed while the numerical and graphical results are tendered.