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Thin Walled Pressure Vessel

This document discusses thin-walled pressure vessels and the stresses they experience due to internal pressure. It provides formulas to calculate tangential (circumferential) stress and longitudinal stress in cylindrical vessels, as well as stress in spherical vessels. It also provides example problems calculating stresses and maximum pressures for given vessel dimensions and stress limits.

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Sheryl Liclican
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317 views2 pages

Thin Walled Pressure Vessel

This document discusses thin-walled pressure vessels and the stresses they experience due to internal pressure. It provides formulas to calculate tangential (circumferential) stress and longitudinal stress in cylindrical vessels, as well as stress in spherical vessels. It also provides example problems calculating stresses and maximum pressures for given vessel dimensions and stress limits.

Uploaded by

Sheryl Liclican
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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THIN-WALLED PRESSURE VESSELS.

A tank or pipe carrying a fluid or gas under a pressure is subjected to tensile forces,
which resist bursting, developed across longitudinal and transverse sections.
TANGENTIAL STRESS (Circumferential Stress) Consider the tank shown being subjected to an internal pressure P. The
length of the tank is L and the wall thickness is t. Isolating the right half of the tank:

The forces acting are the total pressures caused by the internal pressure P and the total tension in the walls T.

If there exist an external pressure 𝑃𝑂 and an internal pressure 𝑃𝑖 , the formula may be expressed as:

LONGITUDINAL STRESS, 𝝈𝑳 Consider the free body diagram in the transverse section of the tank:

The total force acting at the rear of the tank F must equal to the total longitudinal stress on the wall 𝑃𝑇 = 𝜎𝐿𝐴𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑙.
Since t is so small compared to D, the area of the wall is close to 𝜋𝐷𝑡.

If there exist an external pressure 𝑃𝑂 and an internal pressure 𝑃𝑖 , the formula may be expressed as:

It can be observed that the tangential stress is twice that of the longitudinal stress

SPHERICAL SHELL

If a spherical tank of diameter D and thickness t contains gas under a pressure of P, the stress at the wall can be
expressed as:
SAMPLE PROBLEMS!
1. A cylindrical steel pressure vessel 400 mm in diameter with a wall thickness of 20 mm, is subjected to an internal
pressure of 4.5 MN/m2. (a) Calculate the tangential and longitudinal stresses in the steel. (b) To what value may
the internal pressure be increased if the stress in the steel is limited to 120 MN/m2?
2. The wall thickness of a 4-ft-diameter spherical tank is 5/16 inch. Calculate the allowable internal pressure if the
stress is limited to 8000 psi.
3. A water tank, 22 ft in diameter, is made from steel plates that are 1/2 in. thick. Find the maximum height to
which the tank may be filled if the circumferential stress is limited to 6000 psi. The specific weight of water is
62.4 lb/ft3.
4. A cylindrical pressure vessel is fabricated from steel plating that has a thickness of 20 mm. The diameter of the
pressure vessel is 450 mm and its length is 2.0 m. Determine the maximum internal pressure that can be applied
if the longitudinal stress is limited to 140 MPa, and the circumferential stress is limited to 60 MPa.
5. What is the stress in a 90-cm diameter pipe having a wall thickness of 9.5 cm and under a pressure of 686,000
Pa.

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