Master Thesis Project

Title: Development of Fuel Spray Visualization Test Rig

Progress Report
February 14, 2019
 1. Pressure vessel design
There are various failure modes of a pressure vessel. Some of them are,
 Elastic deformation
 Excessive plastic deformation
 Brittle fracture
 Fatigue etc
Since, the stiffness of the pressure vessel is major concern here, we consider Elastic deformation
mode. Elastic instability or elastic buckling must be evaluated by considering vessel geometry,
stiffness as well as properties of materials.
1.1. Stresses:
When a thick-walled pressure vessel is subjected to internal pressure, radial, tangential and
longitudinal stresses are induced in the material. The general expressions for radial and tangential
stresses are given by the equations below. These equations are known as Lame’s solution:
𝑎2 𝑝𝑖 − 𝑏2 𝑝𝑜 (𝑝𝑖 −𝑝𝑜 )𝑎2 𝑏2
Radial stress : 𝜎𝑟 = − (1)
𝑏2 −𝑎2 𝑟 2 (𝑏2 −𝑎2 )

𝑎2 𝑝𝑖 − 𝑏2 𝑝𝑜 (𝑝𝑖 −𝑝𝑜 )𝑎2 𝑏2

Tangential stress : 𝜎𝑡 = + (2)
𝑏2 −𝑎2 𝑟 2 (𝑏2 −𝑎2 )

The radial and tangential stress values are calculated using MATLAB.
The maximum shearing stress at any point in the cylinder in equal to one half the algebraic
difference of the maximum and minimum principle stresses at that point.
𝜎𝑡 − 𝜎𝑟
𝜏 = (3)
2

1.2. Deformation:
The radial displacement of any point in the wall of the cylindrical pressure vessel is given by
equation 4
1−𝜇 𝑎2 𝑝𝑖 − 𝑏2 𝑝𝑜 1+𝜇 𝑎2 𝑏2 (𝑝𝑖 − 𝑝𝑜 )
𝑢 = 𝑟 + (4)
𝐸 𝑏2 −𝑎2 𝐸 (𝑏2 −𝑎2 ) 𝑟

2. Design of cover for pressure vessel

2.1. Flat plate or cover:
A simply supported circular plate of radius R and thickness t subjected to uniform pressure P. The
plate will deform due to bending stresses. The deflection at the center of this plate is a maximum
and is given by the equation below.
5+𝜗 𝑃𝑅 4
𝛿𝑚𝑎𝑥 = × (5)
1+𝜗 64𝐷
 𝐸𝑡3
𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝐷 = (6)
12(1−𝜗2 )

𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑘𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 .

the stress is maximum at inner surface of the plate.
3(3+𝜗) 𝑃𝑅 2
𝑆𝑚𝑎𝑥 = (7)
8 𝑡2

3. Results
3.1. Stresses and deformation in pressure vessel
Figure 1 below shows how the circumferential stress varies with the thickness of pressure vessel.

Figure 1. Variation of circumferential stress with vessel thickness

A circumferential stress of 70 MPa, gives a safety factor 4. The corresponding thickness is 17 mm.
The variation of vessel deformation with respect to vessel thickness is shown in figure 2.

Since, the deformation is very small, the stresses determine the dimensions of the pressure vessel.

3.2. Deformation of cover plate

The variation of cover plate deformation with respect to the thickness is shown in figure 3.

Figure 3. Variation of cover plate deformation with thickness

From the figure above, we can see that, the cover plate deformations are very high. For a deflection
of 0.1 mm, the cover plate thickness is 45 mm.
 3.3. Sight glass design
For a deformation of 0.1 mm, the calculated sight glass thickness is 29.6 mm. Quartz or fused
silica glasses are considered for the calculations.