The present work presents plastic limit load solutions for branch pipe tee connection under internal pressure and in plane bending moment based on detailed three dimensional finite element limit analysis using elastic - perfectly plastic materials. To assure reliability of the FE limit loads, modeling issues are addressed first, such as the effect of kinematic boundary conditions and branch pipe geometries on the FE limit loads. Several models of branch pipe tee connection are meshed with shell elements and submitted to internal pressure with end in plane bending moment. Results are compared with lower and upper bound analytical solutions and experimental results reported in the literature. Computations with 20 noded elements are proposed to validate this analysis.

Key words: Finite ElementAnalysis