STRESS CONCENTRATION PHENOMENA IN THE VICINITY OF CYLINDER-TO-CYLINDER INTERSECTION REGIONS

Intersecting cylindrical shells are frequently encountered in various types of engineering structures. Despite their common occurrence, reliable and accurate analytical methods have not been generally available. To contribute to the understanding of the stress concentration phenomena and possible solutions for them, finite element analyses are carried out for shells with holes, shells with reinforced holes and cylinder-to-cylinder intersections. The overall agreement between the finite element predictions and experimental results is a very good one. It has been shown that by using the finite element method together with a "mesh generation" technique, both computational efficiency and minimum user time can be retained.

Keywords:

Cylinder to cylinder intersections , Finite element method , Joints (structural components) , Nozzles , Shells (structures) , Stress Concentrations