Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Mechanical Engineering

ME328

Introduction to Design
Cylinder Stresses

This handout shows one way of analyzing the stresses in pressurized cylinders, as
presented in class. The method is fashioned after that presented in Shigley and
Mitchells Mechanical Engineering Design, 4th Ed., McGraw-Hill, 1983.

General (Thick-walled) Cylinders

The cylinder is defined with its inside and outside radii as a and b respectively.
The internal pressure is pi and the external pressure is po , and the length of section
being analyzed is l. We imagine the cylinder to be composed of an infinite number
of infinitely thin (thickness dr) shells. We balance the forces on each shell, then
integrate these forces for all radii r. In this way we can see how the stresses vary
from the inside radius to the outside radius.
The forces on the thin shell acting in the y direction must add up to zero. Each of
these forces is calculated as stress times area. This means
2t ldr + 2r lr 2l(r + dr )(r + dr) = 0
We multiply the last terms out, throwing away the dr dr term because its the
product of two very small quantities. We also cancel out 2l and simplify:
t r r

dr
=0
dr

Now we have a way to relate t and r but thats two unknowns and only one
equation and its a differential equation. We need more equations. We get another
one by assuming that the strain in the axial (or longitudinal direction, that is, the

pipe getting longer) is constant so that plane sections remain plane after the pipe
has expanded due to internal pressure. This is only natural because if different
parts of the pipe grew at different rates as the pipe expanded, the ends would have
to somehow accumulate material in an uneven manner, and the shear strain at the
end of a very long pipe would become nearly infinite. Also, we assume that the
material is linearly elastic. Then we can say
t r
l =

E
E
and solve this for t to get
t = r

El

l
The term E
is comprised of constants only and so it can be lumped into a constant
term C1 along with other stuff like a 2 and a negative sign. We can find the actual
value of C1 a little later.

We eliminate t from the two main equations above, put in the constant term
C1 , and get the following:
dr
r
+ 2r = 2C1
dr
Then we multiply this thing by r to get
r2

dr
+ 2rr = 2rC1
dr

Now comes a one of those tricks which mathematicians seem to love. Notice that
the stuff on the left of the equals sign in the equation above is equal to the derivative
with respect to r of r2 r . Then we can write the whole equation as
d 2
(r r ) = 2rC1
dr
This equation is easy to integrate with respect to r. We do so and get
r2 r = r2 C1 + C2
Now we just have to solve for the constants of integration C1 and C2 . This is done
by using the boundary conditions of the problem; in particular, we note that the
radial stress at the inside diameter is equal to the negative of the pressure inside
the cylinder, so r (r = a) = pi and the radial stress at the outside diameter is
the negative of the outside pressure, so r (r = b) = po . Plugging these values into
the equation for radial stress as a function of radius, and simplifying the resulting
mess, we end up with the values of C1 and C2 . Plugging these in gives the following
formula for radial stress:
2 2

pi a2 po b2 + ar2b (po pi )
r =
b2 a2
For tangential stress, the corresponding formula is:
2 2

pi a2 po b2 ar2b (po pi )
r =
b2 a2

These formulas are applicable to a wide range of problems. But about 90% of
the time, we will be designing pressure vessels in which the external pressure is
negligible. For those, we can use simplified versions of the cylinder equations:
a2
(1
b2 a2
a2
= pi 2
(1 +
b a2

r = pi
t

b2
)
r2
b2
)
r2

All these equations have assumed that the axial stress is zero. If were dealing with
an enclosed pressure vessel whose ends are not externally supported (for example,
a soda can or a pressurized air tank) there must be an axial stress which holds the
ends of the container together. This stress is easily found by drawing a free-body
diagram of the cylinder, imagining it cut in half to show the cross section, and
balancing the forces due to the pressure in the cylinders contents with the forces
due to the stress in the cylinders walls. (Its really just force times area equals force
times area.) The resulting equation for axial stress is
a = pi

a2
b2 a2

Thin-walled Cylinders
If a cylinders walls are thin in comparison to its radius, we can use a simplification
of the cylinder equations to get a reasonably accurate estimate of the wall stresses.
The rule of thumb is that this approximation is valid when the wall thickness is less
than one tenth of the cylinders radius. The approximate formulas are derived by
a simple balance of forces on a set of free body diagrams in which the cylinder is
assumed to be cut in half lengthwise and crosswise. You should be able to easily
draw these diagrams and derive the following formulas:
r = pi (at inside radius)
pi r
t =
t
pi r
a =
2t
In these formulas, the external pressure is assumed to be zero; the internal pressure
is pi ; the radius is r (note that with thin walls, we dont really care if its the inside
or outside radius); and the wall thickness is t. Note the relationship between these
pressures. You can see an explanation for why pipes usually fail not by popping
cleanly apart along a cross section, but by ripping along their length. Some failures
in long pipes have come in the form of cracks which went for hundreds of feet along
the pipes.