PIPING ENGINEERING CELL

Process Equipment Design: External Pressure Design

PROF. A. S. MOHARIR
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

INTRODUCTION

Many processes operate under partial or near-total vacuum. The pressure inside the
vessels used for such operations is sub-atmospheric. With atmospheric pressure outside the
vessel, the vessel/closure wall is thus under a net external pressure. The vessel/closure wall will
thus experience compressive stresses, the magnitude of which one can calculate as earlier. The
vessel behavior under external pressure creating compressive stresses is however entirely
different than when there is net internal pressure creating tensile stresses in vessel skin. You can
experience the difference by trying to blow air in a mineral water plastic bottle to create some
pressure inside and then by sucking out air with mouth to create vacuum. The vessel under net
external pressure is prone to buckling failure. The vessel can buckle, i.e. implode. It can simply
be sucked in. External pressure design to decide vessel wall thickness to prevent buckling failure
follows an entirely different approach. This is the subject matter of this chapter.

Vacuum can be created into the vessels accidently due to condensation of vapor inside or
forcible pumping out of liquid inside. External pressure design is thus also recommended for
pressure vessels which otherwise fall in internal pressure design domain.

EXTERNAL PRESSURE DESIGN

Let us consider a simple cylindrical vessel with flanged connections at both the ends with
respective closures. This cylinder of outer diameter Do, end to end length L and wall thickness t
can be tested for possibility of buckling failure due to vacuum as follows.

Before we come to the formulae, check whether you can intuitively feel the dependence
of buckling tendency on these three parameters, Do, L, t.

If the vessel of given length and diameter is made of very thin sheet, say a wafer thin
plate, you know it would dent in or buckle with even the slightest external pressure. Similarly,
for given L and t, if the vessel diameter is large, buckling tendency would be more. With the
ends of the cylinder sturdily welded to flanges and connected to closure, we know denting would
be difficult at the ends. The buckling tendency would increase as one moves away from these
strong zones. Therefore, for given Do and t, a cylinder with higher length will be more prone to
buckling than a shorter cylinder.

Thus Do, L and t will together decide whether a given cylinder of a certain material will
be safe from buckling failure or not. There would be a certain net external pressure value below
which it would not fail because it can withstand the compressive stresses. Above this pressure,
the cylinder would fail.

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The code recommended step-wise procedure to arrive at this maximum allowable external
pressure, Pa, is discussed below.

Step 1: Calculate two dimensionless ratios, L/Do and Do/t

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Step 2: Using a chart provided by codes (a representative one is as shown), read value of
Factor A for this combination. Be careful as the plot is a logarithmic plot. Codes suggest use of
L/Do as 50 if the actual ratio is greater than 50. Similarly, if it happens to be less than 0.05, codes
suggest use of 0.05 for the purpose of reading the value of Factor A. This plot is common to all
materials as it mainly captures the geometric dimension related factors.

Step 3: This step involves the use of the so called Applicable material Chart (a
representative one is as shown). It is important to choose this chart for the MoC of the cylinder.
Using the value of Factor A calculated in step 2 and for the design temperature value, one
obtains the corresponding value of Factor B from this chart. If value of Factor A is to the left of
the temperature line and factor B cannot be read from the chart, codes suggest to calculate the
factor B as AE/2, where A is the value of Factor A and E is the value of Young’s modulus of the
MoC in psi.

Step 4: The maximum allowable external pressure (in psi) for the cylinder with given Do,
L and t is then given by the following formula.

4B
Pa =
3 (D o /t)

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If this is less than the external pressure for which the design is being checked, one should try
higher thickness and repeat above calculations. This should be continued till one gets a thickness
which gives maximum allowable external pressure higher than the desired design pressure.

For vacuum services, the procedure is restricted to maximum external design pressure of
15 psi, i.e. full vacuum. If the operation is under partial vacuum, the design pressure is defined as
1.25 times the net external design pressure.

For tall cylinder, the above procedure could lead to very high thickness. Another way is
to opt for a reasonable thickness and provide circumferencial stiffening rings along the length of
the cylinder. The stiffening rings could be of I section, L section etc. which locally stiffen the
vessel due to their moment of inertia. This is similar to the local buckling strength offered by
flanges at the end connections.

For example, let us decide to check whether one stiffening ring at the centre of the
cylinder of length L’ would be sufficient for the proposed thickness and given diameter. The ring
virtually divides the cylinder into two lengths of L’/2 each as far as buckling possibility goes.
The above procedure is repeated again using L’/2 (say L’) in place of L. L can be called as the
effective length for design calculations.

If this also does not work, one could try 2, 3, .. N equi-spaced stiffening rings along the
cylinder length. L would thus be L’/3, L’/4 … L’/(N+1) respectively.

What can be achieved by increasing thickness can also be achieved by increasing

stiffening rings. Both increase fabrication difficulties and the best solution would be by doing
both to some extent.

The procedure is also applicable for design of pipes for vacuum application. The
difference is that the pipes are not provided stiffening rings. One thus plays with the thickness
only.

If the cylindrical vessel is welded to one or both the closures, the stiffening offered by
flanges is not available at the welded end. The closure then becomes a part of the cylindrical
body from buckling tendency point of view. The dent can spread across the weld now. In this
case, one third the depth of the closure is added to the effective length of the cylinder in above
calculations. For example, if the closure on a cylinder of diameter Do is hemispherical, then its
depth is Do/2, i.e. radius of the hemisphere. One-third of this is added to the cylinder length in
calculations of L/Do.

Design of other shapes follows similar procedure as for cylinder. In fact, for a cone,
equivalent values for L, Do and t to be used in the procedure for cylinder are suggested.
Effectively, the shape is equated to a virtual cylinder with similar buckling failure. In case of
hemispherical, ellipsoidal and torispherical closures, the procedure is even simpler and
eliminates the need to get Factor A from the chart. The only difference is that in case of closure,
if maximum allowable pressure is less than the desired design pressure, thickness of the closure

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is increased. There is no possibility of stiffening rings for closures. The design for other shapes is
summarized below.

Cone:

If the cone frustum has the larger and smaller diameters at the two ends as DL and DS, if
the half cone angle is α, the cone depth is L and the plate thickness is t, the following effective L,
D and t are used in the procedure for cylinder discussed earlier.

De =DL; Le = L (1 + DS/DL)/2; te = t cos α.

The ratio L/Do and Do/t are calculated with above effective values and maximum
allowable pressure calculated. If it is less than desired, thickness t is increased and procedure
repeated.

For cone, DS is 0 in above calculations. The procedure is applicable for cones with half
angles ≤ 60. For flatter cones than this, thickness is calculated using flat plate formula.

Sphere/Hemisphere:

The procedure is even simpler here. Factor A is calculated as A = 0.25/(Do/t). Factor B is

read from applicable material chart. Maximum allowable working pressure is given as follows.

Pa = 2B/(Do/t)

Thickness is increased to bring it at par or above the design pressure. Do is the

sphere/hemisphere outer diameter.

Ellipsoidal, Torispherical Closures:

The procedure for hemisphere is followed, except that effective diameter is used instead
of actual diameter. For 2:1 Ellipsoidal closure, the thickness is first calculated using internal
pressure design using a hypothetical design pressure of 1.67 times the pressure for which
external design is to be done. Weld joint efficiency is used as 1 in calculations. Using this as the
minimum starting guess for thickness, external pressure design is done for an equivalent sphere
with effective diameter as 1.8 times the actual diameter of the closure.

For torispherical closure, procedure is same as above except that effective diameter in
external pressure design is used as twice the actual diameter of the closure.

These suggested definitions of the effective diameter are as expected because as the
shape tends towards more and more flatness (lesser curvature) as we progress from hemisphere
to ellipsoidal to torispherical, buckling tendency increases.

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The hydrotest of the vessel designed for external pressure is by internally pressurizing it
to a pressure 1.5 times the difference between atmospheric pressure and the minimum internal
pressure in absolute terms to be used in design.

CONCLUSION

External pressure design is iterative in nature. A good way is to start with some nominal
plate thickness (or pipe thickness in case of pipes), remove mill tolerances from it, remove
corrosion allowance from it and use the balance thickness as the initial guess for t in above
procedures. If it proves to be inadequate, try the next higher nominal thickness available, and so
on.