Why do gas pipelines run straight for a few hundred metres/yards then do a bit of a U-bend, straight run for a bit, then another U-bend etc. Why the bend? No valves or anything where the bend is.
In: 7658
Pipes get longer when hot, and colder when cold.
It’s the same for rail tracks, but you can insert a gap in the tracks to allow individual pieces to expand and retract.
On a pipe, of course, you can’t just make a cut every 100 meters. What you can do is to make the pipe run zigzag, or have those S sections, where basically the pipe is free to move.
the extra length will become a side force in the zig zag, and the pipe will shift to the side, making wider Z.
In the other option, the straight then S then straight, the S acts like a flexible joint.
It’s done everywhere. Even in your house, you don’t run hot water pipes straight from A to B. You lay them in a way they don’t make a straight line all across the place.
If you don’t do this, basically when the temperature changes, the pipe fails because It wants to get longer/shorter but there’s nowhere to go.
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