Article
The Need For Flexible Expansion Joints
April 5, 2010
•Article: The Need For Flexible Expansion Joints
By EBAA Iron Sales, Inc.
Shear forces, differential settlement, seismic activity, thermal expansion and contraction, all make pipeline design and construction challenging. For many years the EBAA Iron, Inc. Flex-Tend family of flexible expansion joints has been an integral part of the pipeline engineer's design protocol when conditions such as these exist.
As stated, the Flex-Tend solves the problem of protecting piping systems at various shear planes and in many different soil conditions. But, even the application of the Flex-Tend poses some engineering challenges. The challenges are especially predominant on above ground applications such as bridge crossings and other similar structures (See EBAA Iron Connections bulletin FT-03).
The internal pressure of fluids creates an internal force on the Flex-Tend unit as well as the piping joints. These forces of axial expansion must be accounted for and can, at times, require the use of thrust blocks to isolate the internal hydraulic forces that act on the piping.
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