Experimental Verification of the Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) Tank Material and Improvement of the Fatigue Life According to Lid Geometry by using FEA Technique

Abstract

Fatigue life of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) storage tank is investigated in terms of the Von-misses stress and deformation parameters by using finite-element-analysis (FAE) technique. LPG storage tank is used, which has 315mm diameter, 460mm length and 3mm material thickness, in analyses. Experimental studies are performed to validate numerical results. LPG storage tanks, which are used nearly ten-years-old and new tank, is used in experimental study. Material analysis tests are carried out to determine material properties. It is detected that both ten-years-old and new tank are produced from the same material. Tensile test is applied to the samples taken from the ten-years-old and new tank. At the end of the study, it is found that there is no significant change in pressure applied to the body of the tank compared to old and new tank. However, it is seen that this region decreases the life of the tank due to the high density of stress in lid area of the tank. Therefore, analyses are performed using different fillet radii in weld zone. An improvement is performed in radius of the welded area according to analyses results. It is concluded that this improvement could further increase the life of the tank.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.25.1.21999