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Title: Buckling of Thin Cylindrical Shell Subject to Uniform External Pressure

Conference ·
OSTI ID:21016411
;  [1]
  1. Department of Mechanical, Nuclear and Production Engineering, University of Pisa, Via Diotisalvi, no 2 - 56126 Pisa (Italy)

The buckling of cylindrical shells under uniform external pressure loading has been widely investigated. In general, when tubes are subjected to external pressure, collapse is initiated by yielding, but interaction with instability is significant, in that imperfections associated with fabrication of shells reduce the load bearing capacity by a significant amount even when thickness is considerable. A specific buckling analysis is used to predict collapse failure of long pressure vessels and pipelines when they are subjected to external over-pressure. The problem of buckling for variable load conditions is relevant for the optimisation of several Nuclear Power Plant applications as, for instance, the IRIS (International Reactor Innovative and Secure) LWR integrated Steam Generator (SG) tubes. In this paper, we consider in addition to the usual assumptions of thin shell, homogeneous and isotropic material, also the tube geometric imperfections and plastic deformations that may affect the limit load. When all those conditions are considered at present, a complete theoretical analysis was not founding the literature. At Pisa University a research activity is being carried out on the buckling of thin walled metal specimen, with reference to several geometries and two different stainless steel materials. A test equipment (with the necessary data acquisition facility), suitable for carrying out many test on this issue, as well as numerical models implemented on the MARC FEM code, were set up. In this report, the results of the performed analyses of critical pressure load determination with different numerical and experimental approaches are presented. The numerical results obtained are compared with the experimental results, for the same geometry and loading conditions, showing a good agreement between these two approaches. (authors)

Research Organization:
American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
OSTI ID:
21016411
Resource Relation:
Conference: 2006 International congress on advances in nuclear power plants - ICAPP'06, Reno - Nevada (United States), 4-8 Jun 2006; Other Information: Country of input: France; 14 refs; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2006 international congress on advances in nuclear power plants - ICAPP'06, 2734 pages.
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English