T.J.N.,

Code writers have (at least for the 29 years included in my committee activity) been compelled to NOT make the Code books into engineering text books. This is a mandate of the main Committee on Pressure Technology (all members are minor deities). It is not our charter to teach engineering or to write "cook books". Codes and Standards work together to be regulatory in nature, not educational.

Having said that, I will point out that in (relatively) recent years the trend towards including "examples" has slightly shifted towards your point of view (e.g., Appendix "H" of B31.3 and the non-mandatory Appendices of B31.1). Regarding the Codes not working for you, I would suggest that you trouble yourself to write official inquiries to the B31.3 book committee asking for clarifications (see B31.3, Appendix Z). If there are enough inquiries (i.e., there is enough interest in the "user community) it is likely some Committee will want to add rules to their book section.

I think that design of trunnions, base elbows, et. al. is an interesting and welcome topic for discussion here. Certainly it will be useful to arrive at a consensus regarding the applicability of some of the old empirical methodologies in piping design (not to mention the desirability of sorting out what it is that they really calculate). Most of us lazy people have gone over to using FE/Pipe (or classic shell theory)to analyze local stresses at the interface of pipe walls and welded appurtenances. I hope that there are more discussions of this topic in this forum.

I am now going to have a look at the BS EN 13445 approach.

Regards, John.