An Improved Pipe Elbow Element

When performing elastic-plastic finite element analysis of pipe elbow, people often use elbow. The elbow element has two disadvantages, firstly, it does not represent the uniform extension due to the thermal loading or internal pressure and non-sysmetrical deformation due to general loading condition; secondly, it does not represent the effect of restriction of internal pressure. The paper improves the element. The improved elbow element may overcome the above disadvantages.