Plastic Collapse Load for Vessel With External Flaw Simultaneously Subjected to Internal Pressure and External Bending Moment: Experimental and FEA Results

Abstract

The newly-developed p-M diagram provides a means for readily evaluating the collapse load of pressure equipment with external flaws simultaneously subjected to internal pressure, p and external bending moment, M due to earthquake, etc. In this paper, numerous experiments and FEAs for a cylinder with an external flaw were conducted under (1) pure internal pressure, (2) pure external bending moment, and (3) subjected simultaneously to both internal pressure and external bending moment, in order to determine the plastic initiation load and plastic collapse load by applying the twice-elastic slope (TES) as recommended by ASME. It has been clarified that the collapse (TES) loads are much the same as those calculated under the proposed p-M line based on the measured yield stress. The p-M line adopted in the Ibaraki FFS rule based on the specified minimum yield stress with a safety factor of 1.5 indicates that the safety margin for the plastic initiation loads at LTA is about 1.0–3.0, about 1.5–4.0 for the TES loads at LTA and 2.5–6.5 for the plastic instability (break) loads.