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Allowable Stresses for Pipe and Tube B36.10M

Fluids Engineering and Design
Engineering Materials

Allowable Stresses for Pipe and Tube B36.10M

Steel pipe is manufactured by several processes. Seamless pipe (Type S), made by piercing or extruding, has no longitudinal seam. Other manufacturing methods roll a strip or sheet of steel (skelp) into a cylinder and weld a longitudinal seam. A continuous-weld (Type F CW) furnace butt-welding (BW; i.e., welding pipe in a single plane) process forces and joins the edges together at high temperature. An electric current welds the seam in electric-resistance-welded (Type E ERW) pipe. ASTM standards such as A53 and A106 specify steel pipe A and B grades. The A grade has a lower tensile strength and is
not widely used.

The ASME pressure piping codes require that a longitudinal joint efficiency factor E (Table 1) be applied to each type of seam when calculating the allowable stress. ASME Standard B36.10M specifies the dimensional standard for wrought steel pipe.

Table 1 - Allowable Stressesa for Pipe and Tube Table

ASTM
Spec.
Grade
Type
Man.
Process
Available
Sizes,
in.
Minimum
Tensile
Strength,
psi
Basic
Allowable
Stress S,
psi
Joint
Efficiency
Factor E
Allowable
Stressb
SE,
psi
Allowable
Stress
Rangec
SA,
psi
A53 steel
F
Cont. weld
1/2 to 4
45,000
11,250
0.6
6,800
16,900
A53 steel
B
S
Seamless
1/2 to 26
60,000
15,000
1.0
15,000
22,500
A53 steel
B
E
ERW
2 to 20
60,000
15,000
0.85
12,800
22,500
A106 steel
B
S
Seamless
1/2 to 26
60,000
15,000
1.0
15,000
22,500
B88 copper
Hard drawn
1/4 to 12
36,000
9,000
1.0
9,000
13,500

aListed stresses are for temperatures to 650°F for steel pipe (to 400°F for Type F) and to 250°F for copper tubing.
bTo be used for internal pressure stress calculations in Equations (10) and (11).
cTo be used only for piping flexibility calculations; see Equations (12) and (13).

Related:

References

  • ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals, 2021 Inch-Pound Edition