Calculating Thermal Expansion and Bending in a Pipe

[the4thworld]

I was wondering if anyone could provide me with some info on a problem I am facing.

I have a pipe of 10m and 16" diameter. It has steam flowing through it, and due to inaccurate desuperheating we have a difference of temperatures at the bottom at top of the pipe.

Assuming we have a temperature of 220 deg C at the top of the pipe and 110 deg C at the bottom, we would have bending in the pipe due to differential expansion right?

The temperature difference is due to the desuperheating process not working as it should so there is water in the pipe that hasnt evaporated and thus falling down to the bottom of the pipe thus reducing temperature.

I wanted to know if there is a way to find out the height by which the pipe would rise due to bending.

The pipe is of P11 material( steel alloy)

thanks
Mike

 

[anorlunda]

I think the steam would mix top and bottom, reducing the top-bottom temperature difference with distance.

However, assuming that it does not. An approximate calculation is possible.

If you know the coefficient of expansion for the type of steel, you can calculate the increase in lengths of the top. Then consider the end points fixed and compute the radii of an arc with that length. That is a first order magnitude guess of how much it rises.