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BS4994 determines an allowable design strain through the use of a number of part factors, which account for the
effects of loading, environment and manufacturing conditions on the long-term chemical and mechanical
behaviour of the GRP laminates.
The product of these factors, and a further safety factor of 3.0 results in an overall design factor, K, which is used
to evaluate the allowable design strain, εL.
For the case considered here, these part factors are evaluated as follows:
Therefore, as
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where u is the ultimate tensile unit strength (UTUS is in N/mm per kg/m2 ) of the material, and K is the design
factor calculated above.
chopped strand mat (CSM) the UTuS is 200 N/mm/(kg/m2), thus uL = 17.2 N/mm/(kg/m2)
woven rovings (WR) the UTuS is 300 N/mm/(kg/m2), thus uL = 25.8 N/mm/(kg/m2)
There is a further overriding upper limit to the design strain of the lesser of 0.2% or 0.1 x εr (where εr is the
fracture strain of unreinforced resin in a simple tensile test.
Assuming a resin strain to failure of 3%, then, in this case, the design remains load limited and the design unit
loading ux = uL, i.e. 17.2 N/mm/(kg/m2) and 25.8 N/mm/(kg/m2) for CSM and WR respectively.
Applied Loads
The applied loading on the vessel is then calculated using conventional analysis techniques. In this case,
assuming no significant axial loading, the vessel wall circumferential unit stress is given by:
where P is the pressure, D is the vessel diameter and t is the vessel wall thickness.
Laminate Construction
The total quantity of reinforcement, in this first case for a vessel constructed simply from multiple CSM layers, is
simply determined by:
Therefore a total weight of 10.2 kg m-2 of reinforcement is required. The distribution of this would be selected
according to manufacturers' individual preferences, but one suitable configuration would be:
Assuming a glass content of 30% for CSM, the wall thickness would be 2.2 mm per kg/m2 of glass, giving a total
wall thickness of 22.4 mm.
A more efficient structure is obtained using a combination of CSM with WR, in which case the laminate
construction is determined as follows:
The design unit loading in the WR must be reduced such that the strain does not exceed the design limit for
CSM, hence
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TOTAL 178.14
In this case, assuming a glass content of 30% for CSM with 2.2 mm per kg/m2 of glass, and a glass content of
55% for CSM with 0.95 mm per kg/m2 of glass, the vessel wall thickness would be 13.5 mm.
If a torispherical end is desired for such a vessel, a typical geometry would be hi /Di = 0.25 and ri /Di = 0.15 (Note
that this is slightly deeper than would be used for a typical metallic construction).
At these values, the shape factor Ks is approximately equal to 1.78. The membrane unit load for a domed end
subject to pressure is given by
Assuming a construction of CSM mat and woven rovings, similar to that for the vessel shell, gives a required
weight of reinforcement is given by
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TOTAL 353.72
This gives an actual laminate thickness of 25.06, assuming a glass content of 30% for CSM with 2.2 mm per
kg/m2 of glass, and a glass content of 55% for CSM with 0.95 mm per kg/m2 of glass, as previously.
and the assumed value of Ks = 1.78 is reasonable. If it had been found that the value of Ks was not acceptable,
then the calculation would need to be repeated with a better estimate for the value of Ks until convergence was
achieved.
Reference: BS4994 - Specification for Vessels and Tanks in Reinforced Plastics, BSI 1973.
Keywords: BS4994, Design, Design strain, Part factors, Laminate, Code
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