Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Bellows have wide applications in automobile, aerospace, piping systems and industrial systems. An optimised shape for the bellows is expected to give good guidelines for practical design. Metallic bellows expansion joints are subject to displacement loading, this frequently results in cyclic strains. The effects of convolution geometry and boundary conditions on the failure of bellows are analysed in this study. Lateral deflection is considered as a boundary condition and a FEM solution for bellows is obtained. The stress distribution and the number of cycles to failure in the conditions of lateral deflection are obtained. Comparing results, the relation between the number of load cycles to failure and the flexible tube radius is obtained. In addition, the relation between stress and boundary conditions for the model in this study is also obtained.
Keywords: Bellows, Finite Element Analysis, Number of Load Cycles to Failure, Principal Stress, S/N Curve