Creep analysis of Water tank made of Polypropylene (PP) and High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) polymer material using ANSYS Simulation

Abstract

The present study investigates the creep behavior of water tank manufactured from Polypropylene (PP) and High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) polymeric material at 40 °C using ANSYS simulation software. Creep fracture is one of the major industrial problems for a product used for a long period of time. The creep analysis using simulation software is one of the ways to predict the life and durability of a plastic product with low cost and may help in optimizing its design. The PP and HDPE manufactured water tanks were commonly used for storing water in household and industrial applications. In this paper, a water tank were designed using an academic 3-Dimensional SOLIDWORKS software and ANSYS WORKBENCH were used for analyzing the creep strain for the developed CAD model. The CAD modelled water tank was tetrahedron meshed and simulated using static structural analysis and varying hydrostatic pressure were applied on the inner walls of the tank. The base of the tank was constrained to fixed. The analytical model based on modified time hardening creep model were implemented to analyze the creep strain. From the simulation, equivalent (Von-Misses) Stress, equivalent creep strain and total deformation were observed for the developed model. The obtained Creep strain-time graph were used to analyze the creep strain of PP and HDPE materials over a long period of time. From the simulation, it is observed that the material PP is more creep resistant than HDPE as equivalent stress of PP is more than HDPE at the applied hydrostatic pressure and the deformation for PP material were less compared to HDPE. The simulated limiting creep strain of PP as well as HDPE was in good agreement with the comparison of maximum limiting creep strain calculated from the material database.