Finite element investigation on the performance of pressure vessel subjected to structural load

Abstract

Pressure vessels are highly used in industries and in commercial purposes such as filtration, boiling, softening and hot water storage tanks. Pressure vessels are subjected to thermal loads and structural loads such as internal and external pressures which leads to its deformation. Present work focusses on the modeling of the pressure vessel according to standard dimensions using CREO 6.0 and analyzing it for three different materials and different pressure values using finite element approach. The materials considered in this study for the fabrication of pressure vessel are carbon steel, stainless steel, and titanium alloy. The finite element analysis results have been presented in graphical form. Results indicated that, titanium alloy is able to withstand high stresses and exhibited high factor of safety of 4.10. And among the steels, stainless steel demonstrated low structural performance.