Prediction of the strength and fracture of the fuel storage tank

Abstract

The work is designed to evaluate mechanical con-dition of used petroleum product (diesel) tank by analyzing stress state of the tank shell lower courses and defining critical crack sizes for postulated defect. The actual pa-rameters of used tank are determined and adopted in the analytical model. By using analytical and numerical calcu-lation stresses state of the shell near the bottom has been determined. By varying through wall crack length in the shell wall the critical crack sizes were defined by using R6 method. Calculations have shown that the critical crack size is 143 mm for the 10 mm shell thickness. Stability analysis showed that when the crack reaches the length of up to 1000 mm the local stability of the tank is loosed.