HEAD SHAPE ANALYSIS OF COMPOSITE PRESSURE VESSELS

High pressure vessels are widely used in commercial and aerospace applications as well as transportation vehicles. One of the important parameters in pressure vessel design is the shape of vessel cap. In this paper different known head shapes such as ellipsoidal, torispherical, hemispherical and geodesic, for filament wound pressure vessels are studied. According to failure criterion, stresses, displacements, internal volume and weight, best head shape is proposed .In all cases the winding angle obeys the Clairot’s equation. Best head shape with different winding angles is numerically analyzed, and the optimal winding angle (opening radius) for the head shape can be found. The results show that the geodesic head shape with smaller winding angles has better performance compared to other head shapes.