Department of Civil Engineering

Auburn University

Laboratory Report
on
Thin Walled Pressure Vessel Assignment

Submitted to
Golpar Garmestani

Submitted by
Michael Harris

Group Members
Jake Brown, Cameron Bonner

April 8, 2015
-Table of Contents-
Theory.....................................................................................................1
Results and discussion.3
References
Appendix: A Notation A 1
Appendix: B Spreadsheets..B 1

2
-Theory-
The experiment further increased the knowledge about thin-walled pressure vessels. These are
containers that are defined as closed cylinders in which the internal pressure is different from the
external pressure that have a wall thickness smaller than 10% of the internal radius. Due to the walls
being reasonably thin, any bending stresses about the cylinder walls can be neglected, forming a two
dimensional state of stress. The two types of stress that correspond to these two dimensions are a

longitudinal normal stress (l), hoop normal stress (h), and a shear stress (lh). This can be seen
pictorially below in figure: 1.

Figure 1: Hoop stress and longitudinal stress

shown on the face and cut sections of a thin-
walled pressure vessel.

Using the following equations the theoretical values

for the stresses above can be calculated with the force as p the gage pressure, r as the internal radius and
t as the wall thickness.
pr pr
1= h=
2t t
In the experiment, the stresses were found both theoretically and measured with a strain-rosette

(figure 2) constructed of 3 electrical-resistance strain ( ) gages attached to the outer wall of the thin-
walled pressure vessel. The vessel is filled with air until it reaches a given pressure in the lab manual

(Marshall), then the 3 strains are read off of a monitor given as A, B, and C. Each represents a
different angle () on the stain-rosette with angles of A is at 45o, B is at 0o, and C is at -45o or 315o.

Using the measured strains one can find two perpendicular normal strains ( x and y) along with a shear
strain (xy) with the equations in figure 3.

1
Figure 2: Example of a 45o strain-rosette. Figure 3:
Equations for calculating strain.
For this experiment the equations are solved using a matrix that is shown below in figure 4.

Figure 4: Example of figure 3 in matrix form.

After the values of x, y and xy are calculated then their corresponding stresses (x, y, xy) can be
found using the equations known as stress strain relationships for two-dimensional stress (figure 5).
Modulus of elasticity (E), poisons ratio (v) and shear
modulus (G) are also used in the equations.

Figure 5: Stress strain relationships where x is l and y is h

Once the values of the stresses and strains were calculated Mohrs Circle for stress and strain could be

drawn. Using Mohrs Circle with equations in figure 6 the principal stresses ( 1, 3) and maximum in-plane shear

strain (max). To solve for the

strain values one would simply
replace the with .

2
Figure 6: Mohrs Circle
-Results and Discussion-
The experiment involved pumping air into a pressure vessel until it reached pressures of 250, 500 and
750 pound per square inch (psi). Once each level was reached individually the reading on the strain
indicators was recorded. Table 1 is the recoded data along with the computed averages.
Table 1: In lab recorded data and the average of the 3 runs.
Run 1
Pressure (psi) A B C
250 0.000089 0.00003 0.000098
500 0.000194 0.000069 0.000207
750 0.000301 0.000107 0.000314

Run 2
Pressure (psi) A B C
250 0.000084 0.00003 0.00009
500 0.000191 0.00007 0.000102
750 0.000295 0.000105 0.000305

Run 3
Pressure (psi) A B C
250 0.000091 0.000034 0.000097
500 0.000195 0.000071 0.000202
750 0.000302 0.000108 0.00031

Average
Pressure (psi) A B C
250 0.000088 3.13E-05 0.000095
500 0.000193 0.00007 0.00017
750 0.000299 0.000107 0.00031

3
 One the data was reduced from the table above the theoretical values for l and h were
computed and shown in table 2 below.

Table 2: Theoretical stresses. Calculated Theoretical Stress

Pressure
(psi) l h
250 2510.54 5021.084
500 5021.08 10042.17
750 7531.63 15063.25

Then the measured l, h, l and h were computed using the experimentally measured strains
(table 3).
Table 3: Calculated stress and strain using the experimental data.
Measured Stress & Strain
250 (psi) 500 (psi) 750 (psi)

l ( in/in ) 3.13E-05 7.00E-05 1.07E-04

h ( in/in ) 1.52E-04 2.94E-04 5.02E-04

l (psi) 2183.08 4508.81 7317.77

h (psi) 4836.10 9440.05 16041.13

4
-References-
Marshall, Justin. Introductory Assignment from Canvas. Auburn University, Auburn, AL
Ramey, G. Ed. (1993). Revised (Aug. 2012) by Martina Svyantek and Justin D. Marshall.
Mechanics of solids and Structures Laboratory Manual. Auburn University, Auburn, AL

-Appendix A: Notation-
Symbol Description Page Number

Ix Moment of inertia about x axis 2

Iy Moment of inertia about y axis 2

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 Ixy Product of inertia 3
Imin Minimum amount of inertia 3
rx Radius of gyration about x axis 2
ry Radius of gyration about y axis 2
rmin Minimum radius of gyration 3
X Distance from y axis to centroid 2
Y Distance from x axis to centroid 2
AISC American Institute of Steel Construction 2
p Angle of principle axis 3
Inches 3

A-1