The Impact of the Bauschinger Effect on Stress Concentrations and Stress Intensity Factors for Eroded Autofrettaged Thick Cylindrical Pressure Vessels

Our previous studies have shown that stress intensity factors (SIFs) are influenced considerably from the presence of the Bauschinger Effect (BE) in thick-walled pressurized cracked cylinders. For some types of pressure vessels, such as gun barrels, working in corrosive environment, in addition to acute temperature gradients and repetitive high-pressure impulses, erosions can be practically induced. Those erosions cause stress concentration at the bore, where cracks can readily initiate and propagate. In this study, the BE on the SIFs will be investigated for a crack emanating from an erosion’s deepest point in a multiply eroded autofrettaged, pressurized thick-walled cylinder. A commercial finite element package, ansys, was employed to perform this type of analysis. A two-dimensional model, analogous to the authors’ previous studies, has been adopted for this new investigation. Autofrettage with and without BE, based on von Mises yield criterion, is simulated by thermal loading and the SIFs are determined by the nodal displacement method. The SIFs are evaluated for a variety of relative crack lengths, a₀/t = 0.01–0.45 emanating from the tip of the erosion of different geometries including (a) semicircular erosions of relative depths of 1%–10% of the cylinder’s wall thickness, t; (b) arc erosions for several dimensionless radii of curvature, r′/t = 0.05–0.4; and (c) semi-elliptical erosions with ellipticities of d/h = 0.5–1.5, and erosion span angle, α, from 6 deg to 360 deg. The effective SIFs for relatively short cracks are found to be increased by the presence of the erosion and further increased due to the BE, which may result in a significant decrease in the vessel’s fatigue life. Deep cracks are found to be almost unaffected by the erosion, but are considerably affected by BE.