Elastic stresses in torispherical drumheads: Experimental verification

Abstract

Four steel torsispherical drumheads, machined from oversized blanks and welded to drums of approximately equal thickness, have been tested under internal pressure within the elastic range. The resulting stress distributions are compared with results obtained from photoelastic analyses of geometrically similar models and with two independent computed solutions for each of the four shapes. Important differences are found between prototype and photoelastic results for the two thin shallow heads. Otherwise there is a good measure of agreement between the different stress distributions for each head.