Int. J. Pres. Ves.

& Piping 24 (1986) 239-250

Nozzles in Pressure Vessels: Stress Reduction by Elliptical Shaping

D. G. M o f f a t
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Liverpool, PO Box 147, Liverpool L69 3BX, Great Britain (Received: 20 January, 1986)

ABSTRACT The various techniques that have previously been proposed for reducing peak stresses in pressure vessel nozzles by making the nozzle hole elliptical rather than circular are summarised. It is then shown that for nozzles in thick-walled cylindrical pressure vessels the optimal hole shape is likely to be one that varies from an ellipse of aspect ratio K 2 + 1 on the inside surface to circular on the outside surface. Supporting experimental results are p resen ted.

NOMENCLATURE Major and minor axes of ellipse Nozzle and vessel diameters Thickness ratio ro/r i Internal pressure P Radius of thick-walled vessel r t7 Stress t71~ (72 Biaxial stresses in fiat plate
a,b d,D K Subscripts

a h i o

Axial Hoop Inside Outside

239 Int. J. Pres. Ves. & Piping 0308-0161/86/$03.50 Elsevier Applied Science Publishers Ltd, England, 1986. Printed in Great Britain

240

D. G. Moffat

INTRODUCTION It has been shown by Neuber 1 that if a flat plate with an elliptical hole is subjected to a tensile stress a then the following holds: (1) When the major axis is perpendicular to the applied tensile sfress, the m a x i m u m stress a 1 occurs at the ends of the major axis and is given by

and the stress at the ends of the m i n o r axis is ab = - a (2) (2)

When the major axis is parallel to the applied tensile stress, the stress at the ends of the m i n o r axis is

,3,
and at the ends of the major axis is aa= - a (4)

On the basis of the above it has been shown by Harvey z that the o p t i m u m elliptical hole in a biaxially stressed plate is such that the aspect ratio of the ellipse a/b is equal to the applied biaxial stress ratio a J a z. In a thin-walled pressurised cylinder, this implies an aspect ratio of 2:1 with the major axis of the ellipse lying in the h o o p direction. The stress concentration factor (SCF), based on the h o o p stress in the vessel, reduces to 1.5 c o m p a r e d to 2.5 for a circular hole. It can readily be shown that for a pressurised thick-walled cylinder of radius ratio K - - ro/r i, the hoop/axial stress ratio at the bore is
O'h~i = K 2 + 1 O"a

(5)

Using eqns (1)-(4) Fenner and Nadiri 3 showed that the m a x i m u m SCF in a thin plate subjected to this stress ratio would be

K2+2 SCFi- K 2 + 1

(6)

Stress reduction in PV nozzles by elliptical shaping

241

and implied that beneficial effects could be gained in the equivalent thickwalled cylinder by using an elliptical nozzle of aspect ratio

a=K2 + b

(7)

Using boundary integral equation (BIE) numerical methods, they investigated the case of K = 1.5 with elliptical branch pipe attachments and elliptical holes of matching aspect ratios (Fig. 1). Unfortunately, due to the high bending effects in the pressurised elliptical branch pipes, the optimum SCF of (K 2 -t-2)/(K2-t- 1 ) = 1.31 could not be achieved.

Axial

~ ' ~

H H

_ __

__

Section

Fig. I. Ellipticalnozzle as investigatedby Fenner and Nadiri) However, with an aspect ratio a/b = 0.8 they were able to show that a peak stress reduction of about 20 % was attainable at the notorious crotch corner location. It is unlikely, however, that the idea of elliptical connecting pipes on pressure vessel nozzles would be popular with pressure vessel designers. The present author is aware of three other methods of gaining some advantage from elliptical shaping, while allowing conventional circular piping connections. The first of these, by Schoessow and Brooks, 4 utilises elliptical protruding nozzles of aspect ratio 2:1 in thin-walled vessels. The nozzle connections, however, are forged such that they quickly change

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D. G. Moffat
View on 'K

-@
I

+
View on B

,B

Fig. 2.

Elliptical nozzle as investigated by Schoessow and Brooks. 4

from elliptical to circular cross-section to match the connecting pipework (Fig. 2). Schoessow and Brooks claimed significant peak stress reduction over the equivalent circular nozzle arrangement. The second technique, by Hiltscher, 5 again for thin-walled vessels, uses a forging process to give a nozzle shape varying from a 2:1 ellipse at the vessel wall to circular as shown in Fig. 3. There is a commercial nozzle attachment available that has some of the advantages of the Hiltscher

Fig. 3.

Elliptical nozzle as investigated by Hiltscher. 5

Stress reduction in PV nozzles by elliptical shaping

243

nozzle, and some stress results for this are available in Ref. 6. It is surprising that more use has not been made of the Hiltscher innovation. The third technique is relevant to thick-walled cylinders and is explained in the following section.

ELLIPTICAL S H A P I N G OF N O Z Z L E HOLES IN T H I C K - W A L L E D VESSELS It can readily be shown that for a pressurised thick-walled cylinder of radius ratio K, the relevant Lam6 stresses are Inside hoop stress ahi = p ~-~_

Outside hoop stress %0

=P(K 1) 2-_

(8)

Axial stress aa = p ( K 2 1 1) From these the hoop/axial stress ratios are Inside as before, and Outside %9 = 2.0
(7 a

hi = K 2 + 1
t7 a

(9)

Thus the optimum hole in a thick-walled cylinder would appear to be of elliptical cross-section of aspect ratio varying from (K 2 + 1) at the bore to 2.0 at the outside surface, with the major axis in the circumferential direction. For a cylinder of K = 1.5, for example, the range of aspect ratio would vary from 3.25 to 2.0. However, this leaves an elliptical opening to match with the circular connecting pipe, which as before is undesirable. One alternative would be to contour the opening from the optimum aspect ratio of 3.25 on the inside surface to circular on the outside. Because the hoop/axial stress ratio is 2.0 at the outside surface, the maximum stress will thus be the well-known factor of 2.5 times the outside

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D. G. Moffat

3.0

SCF = ~

(No Contouring)

2.5

2.0 S.C.F. 1.S

1.0

0.5

10

1"2

l"t+ 1.'6 1"8 2"0 2:2

3 K
S C F vs radius ratio.

Fig. 4.

surface hoop stress. On the basis of the inside Lam6 hoop stress this gives an SCF of SCFo = 2-5 x ah__~o O'hi and using eqns (8) we have therefore 5 SCF - K 2 + 1

(lO)

The inside (eqn (6)) and outside (eqn (10)) surface SCFs are plotted in Fig. 4 against the cylinder radius ratio K. Equating expressions (6) and (10) gives the crossover point at K = x/~. This implies that for K < x/~ the maximum stress is at the outside surface, and for K > x/~it is at the inside surface. In reality the outside surface would be reinforced by the attached nozzle, together with the nozzle-vessel weld, and the outside surface SCFs are therefore unlikely to reach the values indicated for K < x/~. The application of eqns (1)-(4) to a circular hole (a = b) subjected to (K 2 + 1) biaxial stressing gives an implied SCF at the crotch corner of
SCFcirc -- K 2

3K 2 + 2 + 1

(11)

Stress reduction in PV nozzles by elliptical shaping

245

and this is also shown in Fig. 4. It is clear that as the thickness ratio increases, the advantages of the proposed shaping become more significant. From Fig. 4 it could alternatively be argued that for K < x/~ there is little value in contouring to the optimum inside ellipse aspect ratio of (K 2 + 1). Again using eqns (1)-(4) it can be shown that for any ellipse of aspect ratio a/b the SCF for ( K 2 + 1) biaxial stressing would be represented by K2 SCF = K2 +------~ +

(a/b----)

(12)

Equating this expression to that in eqn (10) will give the inside surface aspect ratio for equal inside and outside maximum stresses. Hence a 2(K 2 + 1) 5_K2 (13)

This expression, together with eqn (7), is plotted in Fig. 5 against the thickness ratio K. The implication for design is that for K < x/~, contouring should be based on expression (13) and for K > ~/3 on expression (7).
6"0 S'O ~'0
~Q

3.o

2.0 1.0 1'0 1:2

2(KZ+l) 5-K 2

1~

1"6

1"8

2.'0

2'2

Fig. 5. Aspect ratio vs radius ratio.

~
Numbers

5"

Axial Section

Hoop Section

No Shap__ng
Strain Gauc~

Hoop Section First Shopi_~

~ ~ '
l

SecondShQ~_ng

i-

Third Shaping

Fig. 6~a). Strain gauge locations and shape variations for diD = 0.2 nozzle

Stress reduction in PV nozzles by elliptical shaping

247

Axiol Section

--+--

SC.F

---~---A-----

No Shoping First Shoping Second Shoping Third Shaping

3-(

2.0

1.0

Fig. 6(b). Crotch corner stress variations due to shaping in diD = 0.2 nozzle. It should be appreciated that the above arguments are based on the stresses adjacent to holes in infinite flat plates. Due to three-dimensional effects, and due to the added complexity of the connecting pipe, the full advantages of the proposed procedure are not likely to be attained. Also the above arguments imply that peak stresses are independent of the diameter of the nozzle, whereas it is well known that for conventional circular nozzles, peak stress increases with diameter. However, notwithstanding the limitations, there is sufficient evidence in the above arguments to justify some form of elliptical shaping of nozzles in thickwalled pressure vessels.

EXPERIMENTS The present author has conducted model tests using a vessel of 300 m m outside diameter with K = 1-2. Three nozzles were tested, the diameter ratios (d/D) being 0.1,0.2 and 0.4. The connecting pipes were circular and were of equal pressure strength to that of the vessel. The model material

248

D. G. Moffat

was an aluminium-filled epoxy resin and the experimental techniques and results are presented in Ref. 7. As an example, the diD = 0.2 nozzle results are presented in Fig. 6. The shaping adopted was elliptical, with aspect ratio varying from 2.0 on the inside at three different locations within the wall of the cylinder to 1.0 on the outside, as illustrated in Fig. 6(a). It is clear from Fig. 6(b) that the shaping has a significant effect on the crotch corner peak stress. The tabulated results presented in Ref. 7 are reproduced in Table 1.

TABLE 1 Peak Stress Reductions due to Shaping

diD

Peak SCF, no shaping

2.65 2.92 4.35

Peak SCF, full shaping

2.35 2-45 3.58

/o Reduction due to shaping

11.3 16.1 17.7

0.1 0.2 0.4

Unfortunately, at the time the experiments were conducted the preceding arguments for optimum aspect ratios for the inside surface were not appreciated. For the test cylinder (K -- 1.2) the optimum aspect r a t i o K 2 + l would have been 2.44 and it must be concluded that greater peak stress reductions than those indicated in Fig. 6(b) and Table 1 would have accrued had this value been used. The potential advantages of elliptical shaping have been discussed within a British Standards Institution Working Party concerned with nozzle design, and the optimum ellipse and SCF implied by eqns (7) and (6) were presented by the author, a A sample nozzle configuration which illustrates the '(K 2 + l) to circular' shaping proposal is shown in Fig. 7. This could be thought of as a high pressure steam header with K = 1.5 and a nozzle connection of d/D = 0.2. It is obvious that there will be a limitation in the allowable size of the nozzle if the full ( K 2 + l ) shaping is to be utilised, and it can readily be shown that the limiting nozzle/vessel diameter ratio is about 0.25. It was pointed out in Ref. 7 that there were two other likely advantages of this shaping, namely (a) improved flow around the inside of the nozzle, and (b) reduced thermal stresses. It is not anticipated that the proposed

Stress reduction in PV nozzles by elliptical shaping

249

~i

---1

Circumferential. sectin

J~'--~

Axiot section

K= ~ =1"5 , rni =0"2 Ei a_. KZ+1 - 3"25 b

~ on

Fig. 7. Illustration of proposed shaping procedure.

shaping technique could be justified for run-of-the-mill vessels, but for the more expensive one-off chemical or nuclear vessels, for example, it may well be worth devising a manufacturing technique for achieving the necessary shaping. Ideally, further work, either experimental or numerical, should be conducted to confirm the optimum elliptical shaping. Finite element or boundary integral equation methods could readily be applied if there was sufficient interest in the technique.

CONCLUSIONS Peak stresses in pressure vessel nozzles can be reduced by one of a number of elliptical shaping techniques. In particular, in thick-walled pressure vessels, crotch comer peak stresses can be significantly reduced by shaping the nozzle hole from the optimum ellipse of aspect ratio (K 2 + 1) at the bore, to circular on the outside surface. In this way conventional circular branch pipe connections can be used.

250

D. G. Moffat REFERENCES

1. Neuber, H., Theory of notch stresses, English translation, Edward Brothers, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1946. 2. Harvey, J. G., Pressure component construction: design and materials application, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1980. 3. Fenner, R. T. and Nadiri, F., On the use of elliptical side branches to thickwalled cylinders, Int. J. Pres. Ves. & Piping, 20 (1985), pp. 139-54. 4. Schoessow, G. J. and Brooks, E. A., Analysis of experimental data regarding certain design features of pressure vessels, Trans. ASME, 72 (5) (1950). 5. Hiltscher, R., Utveckling av f6rbiittrad stuts f6r cylindriska tryckkiirl, Swedish State Power Board Report No. L-206, 1963. 6. Moffat, D. G., Experimental stress analysis of a contoured cylinder/cylinder intersection, W.R.C. Welding Research Abroad, 19(6) (1973). 7. Moffat, D. G., Stress analysis of shaped pressure vessel nozzles using aluminium filled epoxy resin models, Proc. 7th Int. Conf. Exp. Stress Analysis, Haifa, 1982. 8. Moffat, D. G., Private communication to British Standards Institution Working Party, 1982.