Commonly asked Questions about Butt Weld Pipe Fittings

A buttweld fitting is a weldable pipe fitting that allows for change of direction of flow, to branch off, reduce pipe size or attach auxiliary equipment. Forged Steel buttweld fittings are manufactured in accordance with ANSI / ASME B16.9.

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Trupply is a leading Pipe Valve and Fitting (PVF) distributor and we often get calls from customers who are not clear on how to properly specify a butt weld fitting. The Q&A below assumes you have a basic understanding of butt weld fittings. If you want to brush up on basics, follow the link here Butt Weld Fitting Introduction.

Butt Weld Fitting Cheat Sheet

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Q&A

• Customer call butt weld fittings in A105: Most common carbon steel buttweld fitting material is A234WPB. It is equivalent to A105 flanges, however there is no such thing as A105 or A106 butt weld fitting
• Customer request 'Normalized' butt weld fittings: This is also a misconception since flanges are available in A105 and A105 N, where N stands for normalized. However, there is no such thing as A234WPBN. Some manufactures normalize their butt weld fittings as a standard procedure and such request require checking individual material test certificates to verify if normalized heat treating process was done. Customer needing 'normalized' butt weld fittings should request WPL6 fittings which are high yield and are normalized as a standard procedure
• Customer forgets to mention pipe schedule: Buttweld fittings are sold as per pipe size but pipe schedule must be specified to match the ID of the fitting to the ID of the pipe. If no schedule is mentioned, we will assume a standard wall is requested.
• Differentiate between SCH 40 & True Schedule 40: Pipe fittings 12 inch or larger require specifying if fitting is standard wall (most commonly referred to sch 40) or a true schedule 40 is required. This is needed since schedule 40 do NOT correspond to standard wall for pipe sizes 12' and bigger. A true sch 40 will be thicker than standard wall for pipe fittings 12' or bigger.
• Differentiate between SCH 80 & True Schedule 80: For pipe sizes 10 in and above, sch 80 do NOT correspond to XH. Customer must specify if they want SCH 80 or XH wall.
• Stainless Steel buttweld pipe fittings are available in schedule 10s: Customer should specify if they need standard wall (sch 40s) or a thinner wall sch 10s stainless steel butt weld fitting. See pipe chart to clarify how the wall thickness for stainless steel pipes correlated to different pipe schedules.
• Customer forget to mention welded or seamless butt weld fitting: Butt weld fittings are available in both welded and seamless configuration. A seamless butt weld carbon steel or stainless steel fitting is made of seamless pipe and is generally more expenses. Seamless pipe fitting is NOT common in sizes bigger than 12'. Welded pipe fittings are made of ERW welded carbon steel or stainless steel pipe. They are available in sizes ½' to 72' and are more affordable than seamless fittings
• What does Short Radius (SR) or Long Radius (LR) means?: You will often hear SR45 elbow or LR45 elbow. The 45 or 90 refers to the angle of the bend for buttweld fitting to change the direction of flow. A long radius elbow (LR 90 Elbow or LR 45 elbow) will have a pipe bend that will be 1.5 times the size of the pipe. So, a 6 inch LR 90 has bending radius that is 1.5 x nominal pipe size. A short radius elbow (SR45 or SR90) has pipe bend that is equal to the size of fitting so a 6' SR 45 has bending radius that is 6' nominal pipe size.
• What is a 3R or 3D elbow pipe fitting?: First, the term 3R or 3D are used synonymously. A 3R butt weld elbow has bending radius that is 3 times the nominal pipe size. A 3R elbow is smoother than SR or LR fitting.

come on now, come on now, you said an inspector would reject a bent pipe. please quote chapter and verse of any code that states no pipe bending is allowed. mass gas code says this but not the plumbing code. pex says it can be bent but a certain minimum radius must be maintained.
i keep refering back to the navy yard but we bent every kind if pipe. bending was prefered because of the stress from constant movement while at sea.
i just don't buy the argument that the pipe wall is stretched on the long side of the bend. believe me, nothing we did there was done cheaply. not because we wasted money but because military lives depended on our work.
as part of my government apprentice training, i spent 2 weeks in the testing lab. they stretched bolts to their breaking point, ran current thru wire samples and prety much analyzed alloy compositions. nothing was spared in destroying things in order to make sure they met or exceeded specs.

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