EFFECTIVE PARAMETERS ON FATIGUE LIFE

OF WIRE-WOUND AUTOFRETTAGED
PRESSURE VESSELS

A seminar report submitted by

DIVAKAR V
Reg No: 17-07-11
Mechanical System Design

Under the guidance

Dr. SUNIL NIMJE
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Defence Institute of Advanced Technology
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. A. Kumaraswamy, Head of the
Department of Mechanical Engineering at DIAT, Pune for his continuous
support.

I would like to thank my seminar guide Dr. Sunil Nimje, Assistant Professor,
Department of Mechanical Engineering, DIAT, Pune for giving me this
opportunity to present a seminar on the subject of Fatigue, Fracture and Failure
Analysis. This would not have been possible without his constant support and
continuous guidance.

Last but not the least I would like to thank each and every one who has been
instrumental in helping me to complete this seminar successfully.
INTRODUCTION

In this paper, fatigue life of wire-wound autofrettaged vessels is investigated.

Wire-winding, autofrettage and shrink fit are three common techniques used in
order to increase fatigue life and maximum allowable working pressure in thick-
walled pressure vessels. In all of them, residual compressive hoop stress is
introduced in inner part of vessel cylinder.

The combination of these techniques could increase this desirable residual stress
and also the advantages of pressure vessel reinforcement. The mutual and
simultaneous effects of cylinder thickness, autofrettage pressure, number of wire
layers, wire winding stress, and working pressure are studied in several cases.
The vessel cylinder is made of high strength steel, DIN1.6959.

The results show that by combination of wire-winding and autofrettage

techniques, in addition to ability of reducing production costs, infinite fatigue life
could be accessible.

AUTOFRETTAGE & WIRE WOUND

In autofrettage process, a high pressure is applied to internal surface of a cylinder,
which would cause partially plastic deformation in cylinder wall. After releasing
the internal pressure, residual compressive hoop stress at the inner part of cylinder
is resulted.

In wire-winding process, steel wires with rectangular cross section are wound
around a cylinder with tension stress which causes to introduce residual
compressive hoop and radial stresses in cylinder. Moreover, preventing rapid
failure is one of the most important advantages of wirewinding technique.

Combination of wire-winding and autofrettage techniques could increase

desirable compressive residual hoop stress in thick-walled vessels and eliminate
their disadvantages. As a result, a higher maximum allowable working pressure
and fatigue life would be accessible.

In some respects, autofrettage is a more convenient process in comparison with

wire-winding. For instance, wire-winding process takes more time and wire could
be ruptured during the process. Also, there are some difficulties for starting and
finishing the winding process and setting the wires next to each other and
regularly in the layers. But maximum available compressive hoop stress is limited
in autofrettage process. On the other hand, wire-winding is a safe technique that
introduces unlimited compressive residual stress in whole of the cylinder wall
and prevents rapid failure.

PROBLEM DEFINITION

To manufacture a wire-wound autofrettaged vessel, first, the autofrettage pressure

is applied to cylinder as an inner pressure. After removing this pressure,
autofrettage residual stress is introduced in the cylinder. Then, wire-winding
process will be done on autofrettaged cylinder.

The vessel cylinder is made of high strength steel, DIN1.6959.

DISCUSSION

In the following subsections, the simultaneous effects of two parameters on

fatigue life prediction are studied in 7 cases. In the cases 1 to 4, the effect of
autofrettage pressure will be investigated with the effects of number of wire
layers, winding stress, thickness of cylinder and working pressure, respectively.
Also in the cases 5 to 7, Number of wire layers with winding stress, working
pressure and thickness of cylinder are the studied parameters. It should be noted
that in all cases, the results are obtained without considering any safety factor.
AUTOFRETTAGE PRESSURE AND NUMBER OF WIRE
LAYERS
Autofrettage pressure and number of wire layers are two important parameters in
fatigue life. Using an optimum autofrettage pressure and a proper number of wire
layers can increase fatigue life and production costs. In a wire-wound
autofrettaged vessel, fatigue life should be predicted by considering both inner
and outer crack. Fatigue life due to initial crack on the inner surface is shown,
where Nw is the number of wire layers.
THE AUTOFRETTAGE PRESSURE AND WINDING STRESS

In addition to number of wire layers, winding stress during wire-winding process

has a significant effect on residual stress and fatigue life. Fig.8 shows fatigue life
prediction in different autofrettage pressure and winding stress for a wire-wound
autofrettaged vessel with 30 wire layers. In this Figure, Sw is winding stress
(MPa) and minimum fatigue life due to inner and outer crack has been considered.

Fig shows that by increasing the winding stress, infinite life is available with less
autofrettage pressure. But it should be noted that this increasing would cause to
more difficulty in winding process and also less safety factor in wires. Optimum
autofrettage pressure and winding stress could be obtained by considering
mentioned points. Also similar to previous case, optimum autofrettage pressure
has a significant role.
AUTOFRETTAGE PRESSURE AND THICKNESS OF
CYLINDER

Thickness of cylinder is another factor in the amount of residual stress, stress

distribution and subsequently predicted fatigue life. The effect of cylinder
thickness would be considered as a ratio of outer radius to inner radius which is
named k. Fatigue life is shown in according to autofrettage pressure and thickness
of cylinder.

According to Fig, after accessing to infinite life, the range and amount of
optimum autofrettage pressure would increase by increasing of the cylinder
thickness. So, excessive cylinder thickness in addition to financial issues, would
increase required autofrettage pressure which is not desirable.
NUMBER OF WIRE LAYERS AND WINDING STRESS

Contrary to autofrettage pressure, there are no optimum values in the number of

wire layers and winding stress, more wire layers and winding stress would cause
more fatigue life. But there are some problems such as practical and financial
difficulties or limitation of wire yield stress. Also, increasing the number of wire
layers will increase outer radius of vessel and as a result, it will decrease hoop
and radial stresses caused by working pressure. Fig shows the effect of winding
stress and number of wire layers on fatigue life.

At a constant fatigue life, increasing of winding stress would reduce the

required number of wire layers. Also increasing of the number of wire layers
would decrease winding stress. So, choosing the best number of wire layers and
winding stress is related to wire-winding equipment and yield stress of wire.
NUMBER OF WIRE LAYERS AND WORKING PRESSURE
Fig shows the fatigue life of the vessel with different numbers of wire layers and
different working pressures. According to Fig, increasing of wire layers causes to
increase fatigue life in each working pressure. But the important point is that the
slop of each diagram is increasing too. It means that adding each layer increase
the fatigue life more than previous wound layer. So, increasing the number of
wire layers is advised as much as possible.

CONCLUSION

In this paper, the effects of design parameters were studied on fatigue life of wire-
wound autofrettaged vessels. Autofrettage pressure, thickness of cylinder,
number of wire layers, wirewinding stress and working pressure were five
effective factors which were investigated mutually. The vessel cylinder material
was considered as high strength steel, DIN1.6959, and actual behaviour in
loading, unloading and reloading was applied.
According to obtained results, the following conclusions are yielded:

- By applying optimum autofrettage pressure according to other parameters,

infinite fatigue life would be obtained in a wire-wound autofrettaged vessel, while
it usually is not accessible in an autofrettaged vessel. For example by applying an
autofrettage pressure equal to 800 MPa and 30 layers wire-winding, the vessel
would have infinite life for even 250 MPa working pressure.

- By increasing the winding stress, less autofrettage pressure is needed for infinite
life, although it would cause more difficulty in winding process and also less
safety factor in wires.

- Excessive increasing of the cylinder thickness in addition to financial issues,

increases optimum autofrettage pressure for infinite life, which is not desirable.

- In each working pressure, increasing of wire layers would cause to increase

fatigue life. It is important that adding each more layer increases the fatigue life
more than previous layer. It means that higher number of wire layers has a
progressive effect on fatigue life.

So, increasing the number of wire layers is advised based on aspect of the work.

- By using a non-optimum autofrettage pressure, the desirable effects of wire-

winding would drastically decrease. The fatigue life has a high dependency on
optimum autofrettage pressure.
REFERENCES
[1] Effective parameters on fatigue life of wire-wound autofrettaged pressure vessels
M. Sedighi*, A.H. Jabbari, A. M. Razeghi

[2] Investigation of residual stresses in thick-walled vessels with combination of autofrettage

and wire-winding, M. Sedighi*, A.H. Jabbari, A. M. Razeghi

[3] Circular Cylinders and Pressure Vessels Stress Analysis and Design, Vincenzo Vullo