Strength Behavior of Hot-Tapped Pipeline Under Internal Pressure Load

The objective of this study is to investigate the strength behavior and plastic limit pressure of hot-tapped pipelines under an internal pressure load. Two full scale test models were fabricated for the experiment. A three-dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis was also carried out. The plastic limit pressure was determined approximately by use of the twice the elastic-slope criterion. The results indicate that plastic limit pressures obtained by experiment and finite element analysis are in good agreement. On the basis of the above results, a parametric analysis of the plastic limit pressure was carried out and resulted in the development of formulas useful for the design of hot-tapped pipelines.