Proceedings of the ASME 2009 Pressure Vessels and Piping Division Conference

PVP2009
Proceedings of PVP2009
July
2009 ASME Pressure 26-30, and
Vessels 2009, Prague,
Piping CzechConference
Division Republic
July 26-30, 2009, Prague, Czech Republic

PVP2009-78118

THE EFFECT OF BORING AFTER AUTOFRETTAGE OF PRESSURE CYLINDERS

G.H. Majzoobi A.H. Mahmoudi S. Zahirnia

Bu-Ali Sina University, Bu-Ali Sina University, Bu-Ali Sina University,
Hamedan, Iran Hamedan, Iran Hamedan, Iran

ABSTRACT
In this work, the effect of boring on residual stress
distribution in thick walled pressure cylinders after autofrettage
is studied by numerical simulation using finite element method.
Autofrettage is performed using mandrelling technique. The
simulations are validated by experiment. In this regard, some
cylinders are autofrettaged through mandrelling technique and
residual stress is measured using central hole drilling method.
The simulation of boring is performed by removing elements of
cylindrical layers of small thickness after the loading and
unloading processes (autofrettage) are completed. The
diametral interferences of 0.4 mm and 0.6 mm between the
mandrel and the cylinder are considered for the simulations.
The results indicate that boring increases the through thickness
residual Von-Mises and compressive hoop stresses from the
inner surface up to a certain radius thereafter the trend changes
and the stresses begin to reduce. Boring has reducing effect on
radial stress distribution across the wall of the cylinder. Since
residual stress measurement on the inner surface of the cylinder
is difficult, the measurements are made only on the outer
surface of the vessel. A good agreement between the trend of
numerical predictions and experimental results are observed for
boring. On the whole, boring can increase the residual stress at
the inner surface and reduce it at the outer surface of pressure
cylinder.
1. INTRODUCTION
Autofretage is a well known elasto/plastic technique to
increase the pressure capacity of thick-walled cylinders. Here,
the cylinder is subjected to an internal pressure so that its wall
becomes partially plastic. The pressure is then released and the
resulting residual stresses raise the pressure capacity of the
cylinder for the next loading. The analysis of this technique has
been the subject of numerous papers over past decades. The
residual stress may be induced by internal hydraulic pressure,
mandrel, temperature gradient or shrinking the cylinders onto
each other. On the other hand, the pressure vessels may be
machined internally or externally to obtain the precise
dimensions of the vessels. In the design of high pressure
cylinders the residual stresses distribution and orientation have
extensively been investigated in the literature, [1 to 6]. But less
attension has been paid to the residual stress distribution when
it is necessary to machine the bore or turn the outside of
cylinders after autofrettage. It is to be noted that although
measures are taken to minimize the amount of machining, still
a considerable amount of machining is required to finish the
cylinder.
Newhall [7 & 8] investigated the effect of machining after
autofrettage at Watertown arsenal. He used a new technique
conducting his tests on many discs cut transversely from an
autofrettaged tube rather than on many tubes for saving cost
and reducing time. Newhall found that when the thin disks cut
out of the autofrettaged tube were slit radially, the diameter of
the disk would increase. The amount of the increase was found
to be dependent upon the yield strength and Young modulus of
the material, so that ( d 2d ) / ( y E ) in which d / 2d is
the relative opening of the disk after slitting. This relation has
been derived for a perfectly plastic material and hence is
questionable. Although, the author reports that the effects of
reverse yielding and Bauschinger are clearly seen to alter the
residual stress pattern, no evidence or proof is provided.
Nevertheless, his experimental results show that boring slightly
increases the strength while turning has the opposite effects.
Most of todays gun barrels are swaged autofrettaged. Perl
[9] performed an overstraining process on tube blanks which
are either rough machine forgings or centrifugal castings. Once
the tube is autofrettaged, it needs to be machined to its final
dimensions both at the bore and at its outer surface. In most
cases the bore is rifled, therefore, material is further removed
by broaching. As a result of these machining processes, the
level of autofrettage as well as the fatigue life depends on the
prevailing level of autofrettage so its actual value needs to be
determined.
Jahed and Ghaderi [10] proposed a simple method for
obtaining actual unloading behavior of high strength steels.
They showed that based on this method loading-unloading
stress-strain curves for NiCrMoV125 steel is obtained. They
also showed that the actual unloading behavior tends to be
nonlinear as soon as unloading occurs. Using the variable
material properties (VMP) method, residual stresses induced by
autofrettage process of a tube made of this type of steel are
calculated. Significance of employing actual unloading

1 Copyright 2009 by ASME

Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/14/2017 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use

 behavior is demonstrated by comparing the results with ideal Also, a bilinear elastic-plastic material model is considered for
models such as isotropic hardening and bilinear models. There the cylinder and the mandrel. The yield stress and the plastic
is at least 30% overestimation of compressive residual stress at modulus of the model for the cylinder are
the bore if ideal models are used. Also, the process of material y = 450 MPa and E P = 1.2 GPa , respectively. The material
removal is simulated by using commercial FEM software to of mandrel is considered to be much stiffer than the cylinder.
evaluate the recommended scenarios of removal on
For the mandrel the material's properties are: y = 1000 MPa
redistribution of residual stresses at the bore. Resulting stresses
after machining are also calculated by the VMP method using and E P = 15 GPa .
actual behavior. It is shown that the final residual stress field As explained earlier, machining was performed by
differs significantly if actual unloading behavior is used. removing the ring type elements one by one. This
In this work, autofrettage and boring of thick-walled discontinuous process may seem not to be realistic as in reality
cylinders are performed by numerical simulation using finite material removal is a continuous process. In order to examine
element method. The distributions of various components of the effect of process discontinuity on the numerical results a
residual stresses in different directions are determined. In order three dimensional model of a short cylinder was studied. In this
to assess the accuracy of numerical results, some experimental model shown in figure 3, the material removal was performed
stress measurements are made using central hole drilling by killing the elements in circumferential direction one by one.
techniqu. The difference between the residual stress distributions
obtained from the axisymmetric and 3-D models was not
2. NUMERICAL SIMULATION significant. Therefore, the axisymmetric model which requires
Autofrettage is performed through manderlling technigue. less computation was used for the simulation throughout of this
The level of induced residual stress depends on diametral work.
interference which is defined as the difference between the
diameter of the mandrel and the inner diameter of the cylinder,
d = d mandrel d cylinder . The simulations are carried out at
ambient temperature. The cylinder is kept fixed during the
autofrettage process and the mandrel is pushed into the
cylinder. In order to avoid any lateral deviation, the nodes on
the center line of the mandrel are constrained against any
movement in x-direction (see figure 1).
. The numerical model shown in figure 1 consists of a
cylinder and a mandrel. The diametral interferences of 0.4 mm Figure 2: The longitudinal and radial paths for demonstration of
and 0.6 mm are used for autofrettaging the cylinder. The residual stress distribution
cylinder has an internal diameter of 30 mm, a wall thickness of
15 mm and a height of 80 mm. Axisymmetric analysis is used
for the simulations. Manderiling technique gives rise to non-
uniform distribution of various stress components in the
cylinder. The non-uniformity is more severe at the ends of the
cylinder as will be seen later in this section. Therefore, three
paths were selected for showing the longitudinal and through
thickness distribution of stresses. The paths, as shown in figure
2, are designated as 6, 23 and 48 in through thickness direction
and as 1, 2 and 3 in longitudinal direction.
a

Figure 3: The 3-D model of the short cylinder

a
Figure 1: The Finite element model for autofrettage of
cylinders
Boring is carried out by removal of four internal layers.
The thickness of the layers are 0.23 mm, 0.23 mm 0.42 mm and
0.61 mm. Material removal of each layer is accomplished by
killing the internal elements one by one in longitudinal
direction. Because of axisymmetric analysis, each element is a
complete ring. The poison's ratio and Young modulus for both
the cylinder and the mandrel are 0.3 and 200 GPa, respectively.
The distribution of residual hoop stress along the paths 6,
23 and 48 are illustrated in figure 4. As the figure indicates, the
distributions in the three paths nearly coincide especially in the
compressive area which is of more importance in autofrettage
of cylinders. The radial stress distribution induced by loading
and after unloading along the radial path 6 for d = 0.4 mm is
depicted in figure 5. As the figure suggests, the radial residual
stress tends to zero at the inner and the outer radii of the
cylinder, as expected, and it is negligible elsewhere. Residual
radial stress distribution after boring along the radial path 6 for

2 Copyright 2009 by ASME

Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/14/2017 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use

 d = 0.6 mm is demonstrated in figure 6. Again, although
boring reduces the residual radial stress but the reduction is not
significant and is only about 15%. Therefore, the effect of
boring on residual radial stress after full autofrettage is ignored.
As a result, only the influence of machining on Von-Mises and
hoop stress are studied in this investigation.
presented in figure 8. Again, the same trend observed for the
hoop stress distribution in figure 7 can be seen in figure 8 for
Von-Mises stress. It is interesting to note that the simulations
predict nearly the same loading stress level for the two
diametral interferences up to the radius of 19.8 mm.
10

100

Radial Stress (MPa)

15 18 21 24 27 30
Hoop Stress (Mpa)

0 -10

15 18 21 24 27 30
-100
-30
Unloading
-200 Machining-1th layer
Path 6 Path 23 Machining-2nd layer
Machining-3rd layer
Path 48 Machining-4th layer
-300 -50
Distance from axix of symmetry (mm) Distance from axix of symmetry (mm)
Figure 4: Hoop stress distribution in three different paths Figure 6: Radial stress distribution after boring along the radial
shown in figure 2 path 6 for d = 0.6 mm

0 600
15 18 21 24 27 30 400
Radial Stress (Mpa)

Hoop Stress (Mpa)

-100 200

-200
Loading
Unloading
-300
Distance from axix of symmetry (mm)
Figure 5: Radial stress distribution along the radial path 6 for
d = 0.4 mm
At the beginning of all simulations, the cylinder is
autofrettaged through mandrelling technique. As stated earlier,
two diametral interferences are used for the autofrettage of
cylinders. Subsequent to the loading process, the cylinder is
unloaded by pulling out the mandrel. The hoop stress
distribution induced by loading and unloading processes for the
two diametral interferences are illustrated in figure 7. As the
figure suggests, autofrettage induces large amount of residual
stresses which strongly depend on d . These stresses at the
inner surface of the cylinder are 245 MPa and 420 MPa for
d = 0.4 and d = 0.6 mm , respectively. The depth of the
compressive residual stress also varies from 19.2 mm for
d = 0.4 mm to 22.2 mm for d = 0.6 mm .
The residual Von-Mises stress distribution due to loading
and unloading phases for the two diametral interferences are
0
15 18 21 24 27 30
-200
Loading (0.4 mm)
Unloading (0.4 mm)
-400 Loading (0.6 mm)
Unloading (0.6 mm)
-600
Distance from axix of symmetry (mm)
Figure 7: Hoop stress distribution due to loading and unloading
for two diamteral interferences of 0.4 mm and 0.6 mm
As explained earlier, boring is accomplished by removing
four layers each of which is a cylinder with a defined thickness.
The distribution of Von-Mises stress in longitudinal direction
of the cylinder after unloading and machining is depicted in
figure 9. Similar to through thickness residual radial stress,
residual Von-Mises stress and consequently the other stress
components in longitudinal direction are not significant (less
than 50 MPa). Figure 9 also indicate that the influence of
boring on residual Von-Mises stress in y-direction (see figure
1) is not significant. The reason is that this stress component is
relatively small compared to hoop stress component. It is also
observed that Von-Mises stress is much higher at the early
stages of mandrelling which is mainly due to the high
longitudinal stresses imposed by axial movement of the
mandrel before it can slide completely inside the cylinder.

3 Copyright 2009 by ASME

Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/14/2017 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use

 shown in Figs. 10 and 11, respectively. As the figures indicate,
500
boring gives rise to the increase of residual stress up to a
Von-Mises Stress (Mpa)

specific radius, which is 19 mm and 21 mm for

400 d = 0.4 mm and d = 0.6 mm , respectively. From these
specific points onward, the trend of the effect of boring changes
Loading (0.4 mm)
300 Unloading (0.4 mm)
and it brings about the reduction of Von-Mises residual stress.
Loading (0.6 mm)
One may argue that the value of Von-Mises stress at the inner
200 Unloading (0.6 mm) surface of the cylinder in figure 10 has apparently reduced from
370 MPa to 250 MPa for d = 0.4 mm by boring. However, it
must be noticed that the comparison should be made between
100
the cylinders of the same radii.

0
300
15 18 21 24 27 30 Unloading

Von-Mises Stress (Mpa)

Distance from axix of symmetry (mm) Machining-1th layer
Machining-2nd layer
Figure 8: Von-Mises distribution due to loading and unloading 200 Machining-3rd layer
for two dimateral interferences of 0.4 mmand 0.6 mm Machining-4th layer

50
Von-Mises Stress (Mpa)

Unloading 100
Machining-1th layer
Machining-2nd layer
40 Machining-3rd layer
Machining-4th layer
0
30 15 18 21 24 27 30
Distance from axix of symmetry (mm)
20 Figure 11: The effect of boring on through thickness Von-
Mises stress distribution ( d = 0.4 mm )
10
0 20 40 60 80 100 200
Distance from a-a in figure 1 (mm) 100
Hoop Stress (MPa)

Figure 9: The effect of boring on longitudinal Von-Mises

0
stress distribution
15 18 21 24 27 30
-100
400
Von-Mises Stress (MPa)

Unloading -200 Unloading

Machining-1th layer Machining-1st layer
Machining-2nd layer
300 Machining-2nd layer -300
Machining-3rd layer
Machining-3rd layer Machining-4th layer
Machining-4th layer -400
200 Dsitance from axix of symmetry (mm)
Figure 12: Residual hoop stress distribution across the wall
100 of cylinder ( d = 0.6 mm )

Suppose that the final radius of the cylinder after boring

0 and finishing is designed to be 18 mm. It can be clearly
15 18 21
Distance from axix of symmetry (mm)
Figure 10: The effect of boring on through thickness Von-
Mises stress distribution ( d = 0.6 mm )
The effect of boring on through thickness Von-Mises
stress distributions for d = 0.4 mm and d = 0.6 mm are
24 27 30 observed from figure 10 that the residual Von-mises stresses at
the radius of 18 mm increases from 150 MPa to 200 MPa as the
material removal increases. The same trend can be noticed in
figure 11. Let assume that two cylinders with inner diameters
of d f and d f d are subjected to autofrettage under the same
conditions. If the cylinder with diameter of d f d is bored to
the final diameter d f , the residual stress at the inner surface of

4 Copyright 2009 by ASME

Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/14/2017 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use

 it will increase. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that the The experiments were conducted on a 100 tons press using
inner diameter of pressure cylinders is determined in a way that the fixture shown in figure 14. The fixture consists of two
after a certain amount of boring the desired inner diameter is upper and lower parts. The cylinder to be mandrelled is placed
obtained. in the lower part where a cylindrical specimen holder keeps the
specimen from transverse sliding and buckling. The mandrel
100 itself is connected to the upper part which in turn is hold by the
upper gripper of the press. Two mail and female guide columns
keep the two parts in line during the process of mandrelling.
50
Hoop stress (MPa)

0 4. RESIDUAL STRAIN MEASUREMENT

15 18 21 24 27 30 The numerical predictions for the effect of boring on
-50 residual stress patterns after autofrettage, must be verified by
experiment. In this regard, residual hoop stress is measured at
-100 Unloading the inner and outer surfaces of the cylinder after autofrettage
Machining-1th layer and each stage of material removal. In this investigation hole
-150 Machining-2nd layer drilling technique was used for stress measurement. Since,
Machining-3rd layer residual stress measurement at the inner surface of the cylinder
Machining-4th layer by this method was not possible; it was decided to measure the
-200
stress only on the exterior surface of the cylinder. In doing so, a
Distance from axix of symmetry (mm) 600 rosette strain gauge was stuck to the outer surface of a
Figure 13: Residual hoop stress distribution across the wall cylinder which had already been autofrettaged with a diametral
of cylinder ( d = 0.4 mm ) interference of 0.5 mm and in a way that one of the strain
gauges was placed in circumferential direction.
The distributions of hoop stress for the two diametral
interferences are shown in Figs. 12 and 13. Again, the same
pattern explained for Von-Mises stress distribution can be
observed in the figures. Boring gives rise to the increase of
residual hoop stress in the compressive area and the reduction
of the stress in the tensile zone.

3. AUTOFRETTAGE TESTS
In order to assess the accuracy of numerical results it was
necessary to conduct some autofrettage tests and to perform
some residual stress measurements. Autofrettage was carried
out by manderilling the cylinders with the dimensions used in
numerical simulations. Some specimens were subjected to
mandrelling process with the diametral interferences of 0.5
mm.

Mandrel
Specimen Figure 15: Residual strain measurement on the outer surface of
strain gauged cylinder

The strain was measured using incremental central hole

Specimen holder
Figure 14: A fixture for mandrelling the cylinder
drilling technique. The specimen and the dole drilling
equipment are illustrated in figure 15. The strain was measured
after autofrettage and after reducing the bore of the cylinder as
much as 2 mm by machining. The strain obtained from
incremental central hole drilling was converted to stress using
the stress-strain relations provided by the strain gauge
manufacturer. The results were then corrected according to the
instructions given by Schajer [11] and Shajer et al [12]. The
stress at the depth of 0.3 mm was taken as the residual hoop
stress on the surface and at the point under consideration [11 &
12]. The hoop stresses after autofretage and after boring were
measured as 132 MPa and 97 MPa , respectively. Therefore, a

5 Copyright 2009 by ASME

Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/14/2017 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use

 noticeable reduction (about 27%) in the residual hoop stress on
the outer surface of the cylinder is observed after boring.
The numerical predictions of the hoop stress after
autofrettage and machining (as obtained from figure 12)
for d = 0.4 mm are 40 MPa and 28 MPa, respectively. This
shows a reduction of 30% in residual hoop stress. The
corresponding stresses for d = 0.6 mm (as obtained from
figure 13) are 186 MPa and 168 MPa, respectively. The
reduction in this case is about 10%. Although, the numerical
and experimental predictions for residual hoop stress differ
because they use different diametral interference, the trend of
the results is the same. The experimental values for
d = 0.5 mm (132 MPa) also interpolate between the
numerical results for d = 0.6 mm (186 MPa) and
d = 0.4 mm (40 MPa). Based upon the agreement observed
between the trends of numerical predictions and experimental
results at the outer surface of the cylinder, and if it is admitted
that the numerical prediction also hold for the inner surface of
the cylinder, then it can be concluded that boring has increasing
effect on residual hoop stress at the inner surface of the
cylinder.
5. CONCLUSIONS
In this work, the effect of machining on residual stress
distribution of thick walled pressure cylinders was studied by
numerical simulation using finite element method. The
simulations were validated by experiment. In this regard, some
cylinders were autofrettaged by mandreling technique and
residual stresses of the cylinders were measured using hole
drilling method. The simulation of machining was performed
by removing elements of cylindrical layers of small thickness
after the loading and unloading process (autofrettage) was
completed. The results indicate that internal machining
increases the through thickness residual Von-Mises and
compressive hoop stresses from the inner surface up to a certain
radius after which the trend changes and the stresses begin to
diminish. The internal machining has reducing effect on radial
stress distribution across the wall of the cylinder. Since residual
stress measurement on the inner surface of the cylinder was
difficult, the measurements were made only on the outer
surface of the vessel. A close agreement between the trend of
numerical predictions and experimental results was observed
for boring. On the whole, boring can increase the residual stress
at the inner surface and reduce it at the outer surface of pressure
cylinder. This is consistent with the results already obtained by
Newhall [7 & 8].
6 Copyright 2009 by ASME
Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/14/2017 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use
REFERENCES
[1] G.H. Majzoobi, G.H. Farrahi, A.H. Mahmoudi, A finite
element simulation and an experimental study of autofrettage
for strain hardened thick-walled cylinders, Materials Science
and Engineering A359 (2003) 326_/331.
[2] GH Majzoobi, GH Farrahi, Pipelzadeh MK, A. Akbari,
Experimental and finite element prediction of bursting pressure
in compound cylinders, International Journal of Pressure
Vessels and Piping, Vol. 81(2004), pp. 889-896.
[3] G.H. Majzoobi, Ghomi A., Optimization of autofrettage in
thick-walled pressure cylinders, Journal of achievements in
Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, Vol. 15(, 2006), pp.
124-131.
[4] G.H. Majzoobi, Ghomi A., Optimization of compound
cylinders, Journal of achievements in Materials and
Manufacturing Engineering, Vol. 15(2006), pp. 135-145.
[5] M.H. Hojjati, A. Hassani, Theoretical and finite-element
modeling of autofrettage process in strain-hardening thick-
walled cylinders, International Journal of Pressure Vessels and
Piping 84 (2007) 310319.
[6] Jae-Hyun Park, Young-Shin Leec, Jae-Hoon Kimb, Ki-Up
Chad, Suk-Kyun Hongd, Machining effect of the autofrettaged
compound cylinder under varying overstrain levels, journal of
materials processing technology 201 (2008) 491496.
[7] D.H. Newhall, The effect of Machining on Guns after
autofrettage, Watertown arsenal, Report No. 662/19, 1940.
[8] D.H. Newhall, The Effect of Machining After Full
Autofrettage, Harwood Engineering Company, Proc. of the
Fourth International Conference on High Pressure, Kyoto,
1974.
[9] M.Perl, , The change in overstrain level resulting from
machining of an autofrettaged thick-walled cylinder. Trans.
ASME J. Pressure Vessel Technol. 122(2000), 914.
[10] Hamid Jahed and Ghader Ghanbari, Actual Unloading
Behavior and Its Significance on Residual Stress in Machined
Autofrettaged Tubes, J. Pressure Vessel Technol., Vol.
125(2003), 3, 321-326.
[11] G.S. Schajer, Measurement of non-uniform residual
stresses using the hole drilling method, Part I and Part II,
Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology, 110(4)
(1998), pp. 338-349.
[12] G.S. Schajer, Flaman, M.T., Roy, G. and Lu, J. In
Handbook of measurement of residual stresses, Hole-drilling
and ring core methods, Society for Experimental Mechanics,
New York, pp. 5-34.