Effect of Head Types on the Free Vibration and Fatigue for Horizontal LPG Pressure Vessels

Abstract

Pressure vessels are the heart of plants and oil refineries stations. In many engineering applications such vessels can be subjected to periodic loading either internally due to the charging and discharging process or externally due to the excitation from other nearby components such as pumps, compressors or from seismic. So that in spite of a good design according static assumption it may be critical in dynamics. In this work a horizontal pressure vessel with accessories subjected to liquefied petroleum gas pressure LPG is considered. Three models of different head types are investigated herein namely; Deep torispherical, Elliptical 2:1 and Hemispherical. The design and material selections are chosen as per ASME. For practical service many accessories are attached to the vessel such as manhole, supports, inlet and outlet opining. Finite Element method via ANSYS R18.2 is introduced for the numerical analysis. The fatigue life in case of fully reversed cyclic loading are estimated and located. Vibration characteristics such as mode shapes and natural frequencies for the lowest five modes are evaluated and compared. It is found that the fatigue life can be increased as higher as 180% for hemi- spherical head as compared with deep torispherical head pressure vessel and the lowest four natural frequencies are nearly identical for all models, however significant change observed in the fifth natural frequency.