Burst failure load of composite pressure vessels

Abstract In this study, optimal angle-ply orientations of symmetric and antisymmetric [ θ /− θ ] s shells designed for maximum burst pressure were examined. Burst pressure of filament wound composite pressure vessels under alternating pure internal pressure was investigated. The study deals with the influences of temperature and winding angle on filament wound composite pressure vessels. Finite element method and experimental approaches were employed to verify the optimum winding angles. An elastic solution procedure based on Lekhnitskii’s theory was developed in order to predict the burst failure pressure of the pressure vessels. The Tsai-Wu failure criterion, maximum strain and stress theories were applied for verifying the burst failure pressure of tubes. The solution was presented and discussed for various orientation angles. Glass reinforced plastic (GRP) pipes were manufactured by E-glass–epoxy and tested for the closed-ended condition. Test specimens had four layers, which had various orientation angles. The layers were oriented symmetrically and antisymmetrically for, [45°/−45°] s , [55°/−55°] s , [60°/−60°] s , [75°/−75°] s and [88°/−88°] s orientations. For this study, a PLC controlled hydraulic pressure testing machine has been utilized. The hygrothermal and other mechanical properties were measured on E-glass–epoxy composite flat layers. Some analytical and experimental solutions were compared with the finite element solutions, in which commercial software ANSYS 10.0 was utilized; close results were obtained between analytical and experimental solutions for some orientations.