Failure Modes for Acrylic Polymers in Section VIII Pressure Vessels

Abstract

Abstract Section VIII of the Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code is introducing the use of acrylics as a pressure vessel material. The design method is specified in ASME PVHO-1, Safety Standard for Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy. The current method relies upon an empirical method developed in the 1960–70’s. It does not use “allowable stress” or other mechanical properties traditionally used to calculate design dimensions, but instead uses a fixed range of dimensions for specific shapes and determines the wall thickness using a curve. Understanding the PVHO-1 design assumptions and typical failure modes is important for a non-PVHO pressure vessel designer using acrylics. An ASME Codes & Standards task group is developing a “design by analysis” method (DBA) for acrylics and other glassy polymers for pressure vessel components. The proposed DBA methodology uses Verification and Validation (V&V) techniques and Finite Element Method (FEM) as the design method framework in order to advance the use of glassy polymers as pressure vessel materials.