Strength of Materials

Problem Set 4: Thin-Walled Pressure Vessels

1. A space simulator consists of a 9-m-diameter cylindrical vessel which is 28 m high. It is made of cold-rolled
stainless steel having a proportional limit of 1.1 GPa. The minimum operating pressure of the chamber is 10 -6
torr, where 1 torr = 1/760 of a standard atmosphere. Determine the required wall thickness so that a working
stress based upon the proportional limit together with safety factor of 2.5 will not be exceeded.
2. A vertical axis circular cylindrical wine storage tank, fabricated from stainless steel, has a total height of 8 m,
a radius of 150 cm, and is filled to depth of 6 m with wine. An inert gas occupies 2-m height 0 above the
gas-wine interface and is pressurized to a value of 0 of 80 kPa, as shown in the figure.
3. Consider a laminated pressure vessel composed of two thin coaxial cylinders as shown in the figure. In the
state prior to assembly there is a slight interference between cylinders, i.e., the inner one is too large to
slide into the outer one. The outer cylinder is heated, placed on the inner, and allowed to cool, thus providing
a shrink fit. If both the cylinders are of steel and the mean diameter of the assembly is 100 mm, find the
tangential stresses in each shell arising from the shrinking if the initial interference (of diameters) is 0.25
mm. The thickness of the inner shell is 2.5 mm, and that of the outer shell 2 mm. Take = 200 GPa.
4. The thin steel cylinder just fits over the inner aluminum cyclinder as shown in the figure. Find the tangential
stresses in each shell due to a temperature rise of 33 . Do not consider the effects introduced by the
accompanying axial expansion. (This arrangement is sometimes used for storing corrosive fluids.) Use
= 200 GPa = 17.3 106 /

= 72 GPa = 22.5 106 /

5. A 20-m-diameter spherical tank is to be used to store gas. The shell planting is 10 mm thick and the working
stress of the material is 125 MPa. What is the maximum permissible gas pressure ?
6. The undersea research vehicle Alvin has a spherical pressure hull 1 m in radius and shell thickness of 30 mm.
The pressure hull is steel having a yield point of 700 MPa. Determine the depth of submergence that would
set up the yield point stress in the spherical shell. Consider sea water to have a constant specific weight of 10
kN/m3. Use = where is the depth.
7. A thin-walled titanium alloy spherical shell has a 1-m inside diameter and is 7 mm thick. It is completely
filled with an unpressurized, incompressible liquid. Through a small hole and additional 1000 cm3 of the
same liquid is pumped into the shell, thus increasing the shell radius. Find the pressure after the additional
liquid has been introduced and the hole closed. For this titanium allow = 114 GPa and the tensile yield
point of the material to be 830 MPa.

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