Optimal Design of Composite Pressure Vessels Using Three Dimensional Elasticity Theory

Abstract

The optimal design of thick cylindrical pressure vessels is obtained using a stress function formulation based on three dimensional elasticity equations. The optimal fibre orientation is computed so as to maximize the burst pressure which is obtained using an exact elasticity solution and subject to the Tsai-Wu failure criterion. The optimal design of composite pressure vessels was studied in [1] where thin walled vessels were considered using a two-dimensional theory. Other studies on optimal composite pressure vessels include [2, 3]. Optimal design of thick pressure vessels based on exact solutions does not seem to be studied in the literature.