PIPES & BENDS - Designing prefabricated elbows into a system can save time because you don’t need to bend anything yourself. However, off-the-shelf parts may cost more. It also reduces the amount of mistakes made during the build. If the shop you operate owns the right equipment and your crew knows how to use it, you can save some money by cutting and bending your own pieces, which brings flexibility to system designs. Those are both good things, but they require good equipment and a highly skilled staff. Professionals with the ability to make proper bends and elbows hone their skills after years of practice. It’s a precision task.

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Pipes & Bends

A Guide to Pipes & Bends

Marissa

Bending involves far more than grabbing a pipe and partnering up with your coworker. Bending pipes in critical systems requires specifications, a knowledge of the fluid passing through the pipe and much more.

Knowing more about the various ways to properly bend pipe and applying it correctly is crucial to your crew, both for building new piping systems the right way and for troubleshooting issues in the future.

A bend is a bend?

You might hear an engineer or technician using the terms bends and elbows interchangeably. However, they are not the same.

A bend is a generic term that describes an offset or change in the direction of piping.

“Elbow” represents a real engineering term supported by classifications of either a 90- or 45-degree bend with a short or long radius.

Bends are generally made to meet unique needs, whereas elbows are usually pre-fabricated to a standard and are available off the shelf.

To clarify even more simply, all elbows are bends, but not all bends are elbows.

Short and long radius bends

Understanding short and long radius is simple enough. The difference lies in the length and curvature of the elbow.

The long radius standard is 1.5 times the nominal diameter of the pipe.

A shorter radius will give the piping a sharp turn, which will produce more friction in the piping. If high pressure is present, create more long radius bends or fewer bends altogether.

Design considerations

Knowing those differences should direct your system design.

Designing prefabricated elbows into a system can save time because you don’t need to bend anything yourself. However, off-the-shelf parts may cost more.

It also reduces the amount of mistakes made during the build.

If you’re buying pipe system supplies from a reputable manufacturer, you won’t need to worry about parts missing the mark.

If the shop you operate owns the right equipment and your crew knows how to use it, you can save some money by cutting and bending your own pieces, which brings flexibility to system designs.

Those are both good things, but they require good equipment and a highly skilled staff.

Miter bends

Miter bends are seen in air ducts and other light duty applications.

This bend is made by cutting pipe ends at differing angles to create a 90-degree or 45-degree bend. The pieces are joined by welding.

As you might be able to guess, a miter bend would not work well with fluid or another high-pressure application.

Professionals with the ability to make proper bends and elbows hone their skills after years of practice. It’s a precision task.

Don’t try to do this yourself without expert guidance and training, or you might run into serious problems and costs later down the road.

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