(School of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, University of Ulsan)
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Ship structures are subject to severe environmental loads causing appreciable hull girder deflection which in turn affects the piping system attached to the main hull in the form of displacement load. While this load may cause failure in the pipes, loops have been widely adopted as a measure of preventing this failure with the idea that they may lower the stress level in a pipe by absorbing some portion of the displacement load. But as the loops also have some negative effects such as causing extra manufacture cost, deteriorating the function of the pipe and occupying extra space, the number and the dimensions of the loops adopted need to be minimized. This research develops a design formula for pipe loops. The accuracy of the proposed design formula was verified by comparing two results respectively obtained by the proposed formula and MSC/NASTRAN. The paper ends with the sample example showing the efficiency of the proposed formula.