Elbow In the piping system, the elbow is a pipe that changes the direction of the pipe. According to the angle, there are three commonly used 45° and 90°180°, and other abnormal angle elbows such as 60° are also included according to engineering needs. Elbows are made of cast iron, stainless steel, alloy steel, malleable iron, carbon steel, non-ferrous metals and plastics.