Finite Element Analysis of Von-Mises Stress Distribution in a Spherical Shell of Liquified Natural Gas (Lng) Pressure Vessels
This research work investigated the modeling of Von Mises stress in LNG Spherical Carbon Steel Storage tank using assumed displacement Finite Element analysis based on shallow shell triangular elements. Using equations of elasticity, constant thickness carbon steel spherical storage tanks were subjected to different loading conditions. This paper stresses the need for proper definition of shallow element using sector angles to obtain the shallowness. The shallow spherical triangular element has five degrees of freedom at each of its corner node, which are the essential external degrees of freedom. The assumed displacement fields of these shallow triangular elements satisfied the exact requirement of rigid body modes of motion. The FORTRAN 90 programming language was used for the programme coding to solve finite element equations resulting from the model while Von Mises stresses distribution within the spherical storage tank shell subjected to different internal pressures were determined. The results showed that the use of non-shallow elements due to improper sector angles resulted in unreliable results while real shallow elements produced results that tallied with ASME Section VIII Div 1, Part UG values.
Finite Element Modeling of Shop Built Spherical Pressure Vessels
This work builds on an earlier work done which used global coordinates where a large number of elements were needed to form a convergence of results for shop built spherical pressure vessels. In this work area coordinates were used. Any action that leads to an inability on the part of a structure to function as intended is known as failure. This research, therefore, investigates stresses developed in a shop built carbon steel spherical storage vessels using finite element approach as the analytical tool. 3-D finite element modeling using 3-node shallow triangular element with five degrees of freedom at each node is employed. These five degrees of freedom are the essential nodal degrees of freedom without the sixth in-plane rotation. The resulting equations from finite element analysis are coded using FORTRAN 90 computer programme. Spherical storage vessels are subjected to various internal loading pressures while nodal displacements, strains and the corresponding maximum Von-mises stresses are determined. The calculated maximum Vonmises stresses are compared with the yield strength of the shell plate material. Using specified safety factor, safety internal pressures with the corresponding shell thicknesses for shop built spherical pressure vessels are determined. The finite element modeling carried out in this research can be used to predict in-service stresses, strains, and deformations of shop built spherical pressure vessels using Von-mises yield stress as the failure criteria. The results obtained were validated by analytical method and it showed there was no significant difference (P > 0.05) with values obtained through analytical method.
Creating the Virtual Universe
Simulation software is important to our understanding of the universe. The intrinsic multiphysics aspects are spiced with a range of temporal scales and spatial scales, both of which cover more digits than are available in the standard hardware. This, together with the intrinsic chaotic nature of many physical processes, poses quite a challenge. To meet this challenge, researchers developed the Astronomical Multipurpose Environment (AMUSE). Instead of writing a suite of multiphysics solvers from scratch, AMUSE's developers coupled existing solvers for each physical ingredient. The result is a highly inhomogeneous collection of dedicated solvers with a homogeneous protocol that scales to supercomputers.