Thin-walled assumption
For the thin-walled assumption to be valid, the vessel must have a wall thickness of no more than about one-tenth (often cited as Diameter / t > 20) of its radius.[4] This allows for treating the wall as a surface, and subsequently using the Young–Laplace equation for estimating the hoop stress created by an internal pressure on a thin-walled cylindrical pressure vessel:
- (for a cylinder)
- (for a sphere)
where
- P is the internal pressure
- t is the wall thickness
- r is the mean radius of the cylinder
- is the hoop stress.
The hoop stress equation for thin shells is also approximately valid for spherical vessels, including plant cells and bacteria in which the internal turgor pressure may reach several atmospheres. In practical engineering applications for cylinders (pipes and tubes), hoop stress is often re-arranged for pressure, and is called Barlow's formula.
Inch-pound-second system (IPS) units for P are pounds-force per square inch (psi). Units for t, and d are inches (in).
SI units for P are pascals (Pa), while t and d=2r are in meters (m).
When the vessel has closed ends, the internal pressure acts on them to develop a force along the axis of the cylinder. This is known as the axial stress and is usually less than the hoop stress.
Though this may be approximated to
There is also a radial stress that is developed perpendicular to the surface and may be estimated in thin walled cylinders as:
In the thin-walled assumption the ratio is large, so in most cases this component is considered negligible compared to the hoop and axial stresses. [5]
Thick-walled vessels
When the cylinder to be studied has a ratio of less than 10 (often cited as ) the thin-walled cylinder equations no longer hold since stresses vary significantly between inside and outside surfaces and shear stress through the cross section can no longer be neglected.
These stresses and strains can be calculated using the Lamé equations,[6] a set of equations developed by French mathematician Gabriel Lamé.
where:
- and are constants of integration, which may be found from the boundary conditions,
- is the radius at the point of interest (e.g., at the inside or outside walls).
For cylinder with boundary conditions:
- (i.e. internal pressure at inner surface),
- (i.e. external pressure at outer surface),
the following constants are obtained:
- ,
- .
Using these constants, the following equation for hoop stress is obtained:
For a solid cylinder: then and a solid cylinder cannot have an internal pressure so .
Being that for thick-walled cylinders, the ratio is less than 10, the radial stress, in proportion to the other stresses, becomes non-negligible (i.e. P is no longer much, much less than Pr/t and Pr/2t), and so the thickness of the wall becomes a major consideration for design (Harvey, 1974, pp. 57).
In pressure vessel theory, any given element of the wall is evaluated in a tri-axial stress system, with the three principal stresses being hoop, longitudinal, and radial. Therefore, by definition, there exist no shear stresses on the transverse, tangential, or radial planes.[1]
In thick-walled cylinders, the maximum shear stress at any point is given by half of the algebraic difference between the maximum and minimum stresses, which is, therefore, equal to half the difference between the hoop and radial stresses. The shearing stress reaches a maximum at the inner surface, which is significant because it serves as a criterion for failure since it correlates well with actual rupture tests of thick cylinders (Harvey, 1974, p. 57).