Proceedings of PVP2007

2007 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Division Conference

July 22-26, 2007, San Antonio, Texas

Proceedings of PVP2007
PVP2007-26534
2007 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Division Conference
July 22-26, 2007, San Antonio, Texas

PVP2007-26534

Life Prediction of a Discrete Multi-Layered Explosion Containment Vessel

Chen Yongjuna, Xu Pingb, Zheng Jinyanga*, Deng Guidea, Wu Xiaodana, Ma Yuanyuana, Sun Guoyoua
(a. Institute of Chemical Machinery and Process Equipment, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, Zhejiang, P. R. China;
b. Institute of Applied Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, Zhejiang, P. R. China)
* Corresponding author, Phone: +86-571-879-53-393; Fax: +86-571-879-53-393; E-mail: jyzh@zju.edu.cn

Abstract welding, explosive forming and explosive synthesis.

A discrete multi-layered explosion containment vessel
(DMECV) consists of a thin cylindrical inner shell and
helically cross-winding flat steel ribbons, which has advantages
of convenient in fabrication and low in cost. The DMECVs
generally fall into one of two categories: vessels designed for
one-time-use and those for multiple-use. For a multiple-use
DMECV, it is important to predict its remaining life under
explosive loading for safe application. A method based on the
growth of fatigue cracks in the inner shell is presented to
predict the total number of explosive tests that a DMECV can
withstand. By integrating the Paris law, an expression was
obtained to calculate the crack growth in a single explosive.
Then the expression was used as a recursion relationship to
determine the new crack size for the next test, when the critical
crack size is reached, the maximum number of explosive tests
was obtained. Results are presented and discussed for an initial
axial side-crack in the inner shell of the DMECV.
Keywords: explosion containment vessels, discrete
multi-layered vessels, DMECV, life prediction, dynamic
response
1. INTRODUCTION
Explosion containment vessels (ECVs) have been used
extensively to contain the effects of explosion shock waves and
products, to protect personnel and experimental equipments
and to recycle test products to prevent environmental
contamination. In the military field, ECVs have been used in
storage and transportation of dangerous explosive materials,
munitions tests and demilitarization of outdated munitions. And
in manufacturing industry, ECVs have been used for explosive
Current researches on ECVs are partly focused on monobloc
cylindrical and spherical vessels, such as the researches in
LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory in America) and AWE
(Atomic Weapons Establishment in UK). When an ECV has
large volume and thick wall to meet application requirements,
its disadvantages of fabrication difficulties, high costs and
quality uncertainties become obvious [1].
A discrete multi-layered explosion containment vessel
(DMECV) was proposed in [2], which consists of a thin inner
shell, a top cover, a bottom cover, and a layered shell. The thin
inner shell is wound helically with cross-winding flat steel
ribbons to form the outer layered shell, as shown in Fig.1.
Applications of the vessels under quasi-static loading
conditions in chemical industry have shown that it has many
advantages over monobloc vessels, e.g. flexibility in design,
convenience in fabrication, safety in use and easy inspection in
service [3]. DMEVCs may overcome the disadvantages in large
sized and thick walled monobloc ECVs.
ECVs generally fall into one of two categories: vessels
designed for one-time-use and those for multiple-use [4]. For a
one-time-use vessel, it is designed for contain accident
explosions by greatly using its plastic energy absorption ability,
and it will not be used again for its irreversible plastic
deformation. A one-time-used vessel, such as the HSLA-100
spherical containment vessel in LANL, can be designed by
ductile failure criterion. For a multiple-use vessel, its responses
should be restricted to the elastic range. One can use several
existent methods to design a multiple-use containment vessel
including maximum dynamic load factor method [4], AWE
method [5], SAND guide [6], and so on. When a vessel is
designed for multiple-use, the fatigue life should be

1 Copyright © 2007 by ASME

Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 10/13/2017 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use
 investigated because cyclic stresses with gradually reduced
amplitude exist in the vessel after each inside explosion. It is
important to investigate the number of high explosives that can
be safely performed to the vessel without failure as a result of
excessive progressive fatigue crack growth.
Therefore, the objective of this investigation is to develop a
method for predicting the remaining life of a DMECV under
multiple explosive loading.
2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Consider a DMECV loaded by a high explosive (HE)
initiated at the geometrical center of the containment vessel as
shown in Fig.1. For simplify, an initial axial partial
through-wall side-crack is assumed at the inner surface of the
inner shell. It is desired to find the maximum number of HEs
with the same weight that can be safely performed to the vessel,
when the response of the DMECV is just in the elastic range.
Fig.1 Structure of test vessels
1-Bottom cover 2-Thin inner shell 3- Layered shell 4-End flange
5-Top cover 6-Nut 7-Double screw bolt
3. METHOD OF APPROACH
3.1 Methods for fatigue analysis
There are generally two ways for fatigue analysis. The first
one is the classical S-N curve method together with Miner’s
rule for computation stress cycles at various amplitudes during
one explosion. The method is being used for evaluating
progressive fatigue damage in detonation chambers for
chemical munitions in Japan [7]. Firstly, the strain-time history
for all the points of interest can be acquired by strain gauge
measurement when an inside explosion occurs. Then,
amplitude-frequency analysis is conducted by rain flow method.
So the progressive fatigue damage for one single explosion is
gained. In the following HEs, the progressive fatigue damage
for these operations can be obtained with the same manner. So
the fatigue damage of the containment vessel could be
monitored online. However, there are two drawbacks in the
S-N curve method, one of which is the probability of missed
small flaws or initial cracks just under the non-destructive
evaluation detectable depth in the vessel which result in
2 Copyright © 2007 by ASME
Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 10/13/2017 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use
premature failure. Moreover, when there is a macro crack
existing in the shell, S-N curve method can not be used to
predict the remaining life because the macro crack may quickly
grow to its critical failure size.
The second way for fatigue analysis is the fracture
mechanics method by considering the extension of the fatigue
crack under the variational stresses during the explosions [8].
The advantage is that the initial crack depth in the shell can be
assumed to the maximum missed flaw size just under the
non-destructive evaluation technology, or the actual macro
crack size existing in the vessel shell. Furthermore, it will be
shown later that the method is a relative conservative way. In
this paper, the fracture mechanics method is adopted to study
the remaining life of a DMECV under explosive loading. It is
assumed that there are no stress cycle interaction effects on
crack growth, which is conservative for a damped vessel
response. The procedure for the fatigue analysis to predict the
remaining life of a DMECV can be generally described as
follow.
After one explosion, the stresses in the vessel will fluctuate
quickly and decrease exponentially due to damping, so the
assumed small crack will extend. A crack extending expression
can be obtained by integrating the Paris law to calculate the
growth of the crack in this explosion. Then the expression can
be used as a recursion relationship to determine the new crack
size for the next explosion, and the maximum number of
explosive tests can be obtained when the critical crack size is
reached.
3.2 Formulae for progressive growth of fatigue crack
According to Paris law, the relationship between crack depth
a and number of stress cycle N can be described as
da
= c1 ( ΔK I )
m
(1)
dN
where c1 and m are material constants, and ΔK I is the stress
intensity factor
ΔK I = c2 Δσ ( πa )
1/ 2
(2)
where c2 is a parameter related to crack shape.
Now considering the stress range Δσ induced by an inside
explosion. For an ECV under an internal HE, the detonation
pressure typically falls into two distinct types. Immediately
following detonation of HE, the shock wave inside the vessel
imparts a transient impulsive pressure loading to the vessel wall.
Then a long-term quasi-static pressure buildup occurs in the
 vessel as a result of expanding reaction gas products. It is the
early-time impulsive loading that limits the design of
containment vessel. Under the impulsive loading, the shell will
undergo complex vibration modes. At the very beginning, the
shell will vibrate in a breath mode. Due to the dynamic loss of
stability of the radial vibration [9, 10], a bending mode will
appear which results in strain growth in the vessel. Finally,
these vibrations will be ceased by damping. For a DMECV, the
amplitude of the vibration decreases more quickly than a
monobloc ECV attributed to friction between steel ribbon
layers. Consider that compression stress will close crack, so
only positive tension stress is effective to crack extension.
Furthermore, for a multiple-use DMECV, the peak stress in the
vessel should not exceed the dynamic yield strength
(conservatively, static yield strength will be used instead of it)
in order to restrict the responses within elastic range. An
approximate exponential attenuation stress is occurred in the
vessel. So the maximum stress range Δσ has the following
form
Δσ = σ s e − N δ
where σ s is static yield strength, and δ is the logarithmic
decrement coefficient.
Substituting Eqs (2) and (3) into Eq.(1) gives
∫
af
a − m / 2 da = c1c2m π m / 2 ∫ σ sm e− Nδ m dN
n
a0 0
where a0 is the initial crack depth and a f is the final crack
depth after n vibrations.
Actually, the vibration number n can not be predicted exactly.
On the other hand, when the stress falls under the crack growth
threshold, fatigue crack will no further grow. In [8], the
vibration number n is replaced by infinity. This is convenient
recursion relationship to determine the new crack depth for the
next explosion, just taking the final crack depth grown in this
explosion as the initial crack depth for next explosion. When
the critical crack depth is reached, the maximum number of
explosive tests was obtained. Besides, because the crack depth
grows little in one explosion, the parameter c2 may be
approximately regarded as a constant in this explosion, but it
should be updated in other explosions because it relates to
crack size.
4. LIFE PREDICTION FOR AN ASSUMED
AXIAL CRACK
Let Ri , R j and t (= R j − Ri ) denote the inner radius, outer
radius and thickness of the inner shell, respectively. An
assumed initial axial partial through-wall side-crack with an
initial depth of a0 is studied. The model is shown in Fig.2.
(3)
Fig.2 Model of the initial axial side-crack
4.1 Material constants c1 and m
(4)
The material of inner shell of the DMECV is carbon steel 20.
The material constants obtained from [11] are c1=2.1116×10-11
and m=3.2476, respectively.
4.2 Critical crack size acr and parameter c2
For different crack shape, the method to calculate crack
parameter c2 is different. According to definition of the stress
intensity factor, the parameter c2 and the critical crack size can
be described as

c2 ( a ) = K I (σ (π a)1/ 2 )
because no assumption need to be made at what cycles the
(6)
vibrations will be ceased and at what cycles the stress is under
the crack growth threshold. Moreover, substituting n to infinity
acr = ( K IC c2 ( acr )σ ) π
2
(7)
means that even the stress is under crack growth threshold, the
crack still grows, so it is a conservative method. According to [12], the stress intensity factor for an axial
Integrate Eq.(4) with n equaling to infinity yields partial through-wall side-crack of the inner shell is

2 /(2 − m ) a2
⎛ c c mπ m / 2σ sm ⎞ K I = 1 + 1.61 ×σ a ×
a f = a0 ⎜ 1 + a0m / 2 −1 (1 − m / 2) 1 2 ⎟ (5) Rt
⎝ mδ ⎠ ⎡ a ⎛a⎞
2
⎛a⎞
3
⎛a⎞ ⎤
4

⎢1.99 − 0.41 + 18.7 ⎜ ⎟ − 38.48 ⎜ ⎟ + 53.85 ⎜ ⎟ ⎥

The formula above shows that, under one explosion, the ⎢⎣ t ⎝t⎠ ⎝t⎠ ⎝ t ⎠ ⎥⎦
(8)
crack depth increases from a0 to a f . So Eq.(5) can act as a
where R = Ri + t / 2 . So c2 can be obtained from Eqs.(6) and (8)

3 Copyright © 2007 by ASME

Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 10/13/2017 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use
 1⎛ a2 ⎞ The strain in Fig.3 is the circumferential strain of the outer
c2 ( a ) = ⎜1 + 1.61 ⎟ ×
π⎝ Rt ⎠ ribbon layer. Because the inner shell and outer ribbon layer are
⎡ a ⎛a⎞
2
⎛a⎞
3
⎛a⎞ ⎤
4
vibrating together, the damping characteristic of the inner shell
⎢1.99 − 0.41 + 18.7 ⎜ ⎟ − 38.48 ⎜ ⎟ + 53.85 ⎜ ⎟ ⎥
⎣⎢ t ⎝ ⎠
t ⎝ ⎠
t ⎝ t ⎠ ⎥⎦ is same to that of the outer ribbon layer. So the logarithmic
(9) decrement coefficient of the inner shell is δ = 0.167 .
For the studied DMECV, the parameters are 4.4 Determination the number of HE for the DMECV
The parameters including c1, m, acr, c2 and δ required by
K IC = 87.2 MPa m , Ri = 0.075 m , R j = 0.0795 m ,
Eq.(4) are now gained. The initialed partial through-wall
t = R j − Ri = 0.0045 m and σ = 307 MPa , respectively. side-axial crack has a depth of 1 mm. According to the
Substituting these parameters into Eqs.(7) and (9) yields recursion relationship, a total 139 HEs is needed to extent the
acr = 0.00242 m . initial crack to the critical crack size acr = 0.00242 m which
It means that the critical crack depth is nearly half of the is shown in Fig.5.
shell thickness. 5. DISCUSSION
4.3 Logarithmic decrement coefficient δ 5.1 Parameter c2
A detailed experimental investigation on multi-layered The relationship between the parameter c2 and the ratio of
explosion containment vessels was described in [13]. A typical side-crack depth to thickness t is plotted in Fig.6 according to
circumferential strain versus time curve is shown in Fig.3. The Eq.(9), when the radii of the inner shell are Ri = 0.075 m
strain of a monobloc ECV is shown in Fig.4 [14]. and R j = 0.0795 m , respectively.

Fig. 3 Strain versus time in a DMECV

Fig.5 Crack extension versus the number of HEs

Fig. 4 Strain versus time in a ECV

For a DMECV, the amplitude of the vibration decreases more
quickly than a monobloc ECV. The oscillation time of the
DMECV is only 3 ms, which is much shorter than that of the
monobloc ECV. Strain growth phenomena are observed in both
vessels. Strain growth is due to transition of vibration modes
from breath mode to bending mode [9-10, 15].
Fig.6 Relationship between c2 and the ratio a/t
It can be seen from Fig.6 that parameter c2 increases quickly
as the crack depth increase. The value of c2 increases 2.41 time
from a/t=0.1 to a/t=0.5, where c2 equals to 1.187 and 2.863,
respectively. Eq.(5) shows that when the value of c2 become
larger, the crack depth in one explosion will extend more. So

4 Copyright © 2007 by ASME

Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 10/13/2017 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use
 when the crack size is closer to the critical crack size, the
extension of the crack will grow larger under the same weight
HE, which is clearly shown in Fig.5.
5.2 Damping coefficient
Damping coefficient ξ can be gained by relationship with
logarithmic decrement coefficient δ , i.e.,
δ = 2πξ 1− ξ 2
For the considered DMECV with logarithmic decrement
coefficient equaling to 0.167, the damping coefficient is 0.0266.
It is a very large value compared with the damping ratio of
0.0013 [14]. As mentioned above, the large damping coefficient
is due to the friction between steel ribbon layers.
Generally speaking, damping coefficient is a parameter
related to a subsistent vessel, and it can not be known exactly
when a vessel is in its design phase. So when dynamic response
considering damping is required to validate a design procedure,
a Rayleigh damping may be adopted. But in the life prediction
study, the damping coefficient or logarithmic decrement
coefficient is an important parameter, and it is required to use
the actual value obtained by proof tests.
6. CONCLUSION
A method for predicting the remaining life of discrete
multi-layered explosion containment vessels is presented in this
paper, and the number of high explosives that can be applied
before the fatigue crack depth reaches to its critical crack depth
is obtained. In the next stage of the work, scaled model test and
FE simulation on crack growth and life time prediction will be
conducted.
Further research considering strain rate, dynamic fracture
toughness and other shape crack such as semi-elliptical crack
together with explosion fatigue experiment should be carried
out.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This project is funded by the National Natural Science
Foundation of P. R. China (Project No. 10372091 AND
50675195) and New Century Excellent Talents in University of
P. R. China (No.NCET-04- 0526 ).
REFERENCE
[1] J. Y. Zheng, Y. L. Hu, G. H. Zhu, et al. Analysis and design
of explosion containment vessels. Proceedings of the 5th
Asia-pacific conference on shock & impact loads on
structures, Changsha, China, 2003, 487-494
[2] J. Y. Zheng, P. Xu, Q. Fu, et al. 2002. The state of the art
5 Copyright © 2007 by ASME
Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 10/13/2017 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use
of explosive vessels and its new structure (In Chinese).
Proceedings of national conference on explosion
mechanics experimental technique, Luoyang, China, 2002,
245-250
[3] G. H. Zhu, J. Y. Zheng. Unique flat steel ribbon wound
pressure vessels (In Chinese). Beijing: Chinese Machine
Press, 1995
[4] T. A. Duffey, E. A. Rodriguez. Overview of pressure
vessel design criteria for internal detonation (blast)
loading. Welding Research Council, Progress Reports,
2001, 56(7-8): 74-89
[5] A. M. Clayton. Preliminary design of vessels to contain
explosions. 2006 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping
Division Conference, PVP2006-ICPVT-11
[6] K. A. Marchand, P. A. Cox, M. A. Polcyn. A design guide
and specification for small explosive containment
structures. Sandia laboratory document, Report No.
SAND94-2255, 1994
[7] J. K. Asahina, T. Shirakura. Detonation chamber of
chemical munitions – its design philosophy and operation
record at kanda, Japan. 2006 ASME Pressure Vessels and
Piping Division Conference, PVP2006-ICPVT-11
[8] T. A. Duffey, E. A. Rodriguez. Remaining life of
containment vessels for repeated explosive testing. 2000,
LA-UR-00-5424
[9] J. N. Goodier, I. K. McIvor. The elastic cylindrical shell
under nearly uniform radial impulse. Journal of Applied
Mechanics, 1964, 86:259-266
[10] G. Lindberg. Increase of stresses in a ring upon dynamic
loss of stability. Mechanics, 1976, 8:25-50
[11] Handbook for mechanics engineering materials (In
Chinese). Beijing: Chinese Machine Press, 1995
[12] Base for engineering fracture mechanics (In Chinese).
Shanghai: Shanghai Jiaotong University Press, 1986
[13] J. Y. Zheng, G. D. Deng, Y. J. Chen, etc. Experimental
investigation on multilayered explosion containment
vessels. 2006 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Division
Conference, PVP2006-ICPVT-11
[14] A. M. Clayton. Design for AWE containment vessel.
Technical report from committee on dynamic and analysis
testing meeting, 2001
[15] Q. Dong, Q. M. Li, J. Y. Zheng. Strain growth in
containment vessels. Transactions of Tianjin University,
2006, 12:193-198.