Limit Analysis of Functionally Graded Pressure Vessels

Abstract

The paper is aimed to perform limit analysis of thick-walled cylindrical pressure vessels made of functionally graded materials under internal pressure. The von Mises yield criterion was adopted in the derivations and the yield strength was considered to vary radially. By conducting analytically both static and kinematic limit analysis, the equality relation between the greatest lower bound and the least upper bound was confirmed explicitly. Accordingly, exact closed-form solutions of plastic limit pressure were developed for thick-walled cylindrical vessels made of functionally graded materials. Particularly, numerical effort of finite-element limit analysis using a combined smoothing and successive approximation (CSSA) algorithm was also made for rigorous validations. Finally, good agreement between analytical solutions and numerical results validates the derivations presented in the paper.