A new shape of radial nozzles for spherical shells is presented in this paper. The geometry is obtained imposing a bending-free condition for the transition between a cylinder and sheperical shell. The soltion is exact for ideal boundary conditions, and under the action of axisymetric axial load. In order to examine the load effects introduced by the spherical an cylindrical shells at the ends of the nozzle, it was performed a stress analysis of the whole structure, using the finite element technique with a curvilinear element. Two load cases were considered: axial load and internal pressure, for constant thickness nozzles and nozzles with variable thickness, the results were compared with the stress distribuition for a conventional nozzle under the same loading conditions. The new geometry proved to be superior as compared with the conventional one as far a stress instensities are taken into account, for the usual loading conditions.