Analytical solution of the thermo-mechanical stresses in a multilayered composite pressure vessel considering the influence of the closed ends

Limited work has been reported on determining the thermo-mechanical stresses in a multilayered composite pressure vessel when the influence of its closed ends is considered. In this study, an analytical solution was derived for determining the stress distribution of a multilayered composite pressure vessel subjected to an internal fluid pressure and a thermal load, based on thermo-elasticity theory. In the solution, a pseudo extrusion pressure was proposed to emulate the effect of the closed ends of the pressure vessel. To validate the analytical solution, the stress distribution of the pressure vessel was also computed using finite element (FE) method. It was found that the analytical results were in good agreement with the computational ones, and the effect of thermal load on the stress distribution was discussed in detail. The proposed analytical solution provides an exact means to design multilayered composite pressure vessels. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.