windu,

The expansion joint length of 192 mm is very short for the 1219 mm diameter piping to have any practical lateral flexibilty. There is also the missing pressure effective diameter of the bellows element of expansion joint, which will be at least the 1219 mm of the piping for most designs of the expansion joint.

A tied universal joint is one design for addiing lateral flaexibility to a piping configuration. The addition of a second expansion joint into the horizontal piping just past the elbow might be a simple improvement to get more flexibility to reduce piping loads on the turbine. The piping layout has very little available space for adding components for flexibilty. If the node 140 could be shifted to provide more offset in the piping, then some more flexibility or even space for a tied universal expansion joint could be considered.