Influence of initial ovality on creep life of P92 pipe bends subjected to in-plane bending

Initial ovality is an inevitable problem in the process of pipe bends manufacturing which results in the stress redistribution of the pipe bends working at high temperature. In order to study the influence of ovality on creep life of pipe bends, full-size creep experiment of P92 pipe bend subjected to in-plane bending has been conducted. The creep strains and outside diameters of dangerous positions have been measured. The microstructures of three different positions of the pipe bend were compared through SEM and the results showed the number and size of the carbide precipitation were the largest at the flank of the pipe bend, which indicated that the creep damage developed fastest at the flank. The modified Kachanov–Robatnov constitutive equations were used to stimulate the creep of P92 pipe bends with FEA software. The representative stress, damage and multiaxiality distributions of the pipe bends have been discussed. The FEA results were consistent with the experimental results and the influence of initial ovality on creep life of P92 pipe bends were analyzed. The results showed that creep life of pipe bends reduced by the increase of ovality and their relationship coincided with the parabolic law.