"FRACTURE TOUGHNES APPROACH TO PRESSURE VESSEL DESIGN" AND CONSTRUCTION

Generaly pressure vessels should withstand internal and external pressures in the form of static or periodic
stresses. If the application of such a vessel requires the lowest possible weight, the fracture mechanics approach
may be considened in design procedure in order to obtain the minimum wall thickness. In this work the thickness
of the vessel wall was determined using K values and smallest detectable flow size as a design criteria. After
estimation of the K of the material selected (a HSLA steel) and Designing the structure, few press ure vessels was
fabricated. static and dynamic test resutlts on the vessels confirmed the correctness of the design criteria