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Effect of Number of Stiffening Rings, Their Position and Cross Section on

Stress Concentration Near Saddle Support in Horizontal Pressure Vessels

Chapter · July 2021

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-16-1769-0_47

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Aniruddha Nayak Pravin Singru

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Effect of Number of Stiffening Rings,
Their Position and Cross Section
on Stress Concentration Near Saddle
Support in Horizontal Pressure Vessels

Aniruddha Nayak and Pravin Singru

1 Introduction

Pressure vessels are tanks, vessels that are used to store, transport or receive fluids.
Pressure vessels come in any size depending on the requirement but mostly come
in three shapes—Horizontal, Vertical and Spherical. Horizontal pressure vessels are
supported by two saddle supports near its end. One of the saddle supports is sliding
in nature to accommodate the change in length of the vessel due to temperature
changes in the vessel. Pressure load, self-weight and other loads due to the different
attachments induce membrane stresses, bending stresses and shear stresses in the
shell of the vessel.
Pressure vessels often have a combination of high-pressure and high-temperature
fluids in them along with this the fluids might also be highly inflammable or poisonous
in nature. Because of such hazards, if any accident occurs with pressure vessels, it
can cause a large number of fatalities. Because of such risks and hazards, pressure
vessels have to follow strict rules and regulations during the process of design.
Pressure vessels are designed based on various international codes to assure their
safety in their operating conditions, common pressure vessel codes used for designing
are ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section VIII, European Committee for
Standardization and British Standards Institution. For our study, we will be using
the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section VIII [1] as it is very commonly
used and is accepted in most parts of the world.

A. Nayak (B) · P. Singru

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani - K.K. Birla Goa Campus, Goa 403726, India
e-mail: [email protected]
P. Singru
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 521
Y. V. D. Rao et al. (eds.), Advances in Industrial Machines and Mechanisms,
Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1769-0_47
522 A. Nayak and P. Singru

In case of long pressure vessels, having just two saddle supports is not sufficient
to hold the structure. The stiffness of the shell is not enough to withstand the bending
force due to self-weight and due to the weight of fluid. When a vessel is supported
by a saddle support, a saddle acts as a stiff support and when the saddle is connected
to the vessel there is a sudden change in the stiffness as the shell is relatively less
stiff as compared to the saddle support. Therefore, we see a stress concentration in
the shell of the vessel near the saddle horn. This highest localized stress is termed
circumferential stress.
There are some methods by which we can reduce this peak stress value at the
saddle horn.

(1) We can add a wear plate which extends above the saddle between the support
and the vessel making the transition from the support to the vessel less intense.
(2) In the case of loose-fitting saddle supports we can increase the radius of the
saddle slightly than the outer radius of the vessel. This method introduces a gap
between the vessel and the saddle at the unloaded condition and when loaded
the vessel can deform radially outwards up to some limit and hence the pinching
effect of the saddle on the vessel is reduced.
(3) Designing saddle supports which are more flexible at the saddle horn.
(4) Adding stiffening rings in the vessel near the saddle supports. This will increase
the stiffness of the shell and thus the stress concentration will be reduced.

Using stiffening rings, the thickness of the vessel can be further reduced as the
stiffening rings increase the combined stiffness of the vessel so that a thinner wall
thickness can also withstand the bending and shear forces of the load. Thus, stiffening
rings are a popular way of controlling the stress concentration at certain regions in
the vessel as they are cost-effective and easy to assemble.

2 Literature Review

Zick [2] studied the different stresses in large horizontal cylindrical pressure vessels
on two saddle supports. Megyesy [3] explained the detailed procedure for designing
horizontal pressure vessels (with and without stiffening rings) and saddle supports.
Also, according to Megyesy, the saddle supports should be placed at a distance less
than 0.2 times the tangent length from the head to utilize the stiffening effects of the
head. Merlin Thattil and Pany [4] performed FEA analysis on pressure vessels with
different head types and found that torispherical heads had lower stress values at
the junction between the head and the cylinder as compared to a hemispherical head
type. Nitin Bhinde and Rajanarsimha [5] also performed FEA analysis of pressure
vessels with Flat, Hemispherical, Ellipsoidal, Conical and Torispherical heads and
also came to a conclusion that pressure vessels with torispherical heads had the lowest
stress concentration followed by elliptical head, conical head, hemispherical head and
finally flat head. Said Golabi et al. [6] performed FEA analysis and found out a new
Effect of Number of Stiffening Rings, Their Position and Cross … 523

approach of reducing the head thickness of pressure vessels with internal pressure by
attaching a stiffener ring on the head. The pressure vessel with torispherical head was
considered and found that a stiffening ring of rectangular cross section is best suitable
for this purpose. It was found that using the right dimensions of the stiffening ring and
attaching the stiffening ring at the right location would lead to usage of 30% thinner
plates as compares to the no stiffening ring case. This method of using stiffener rings
on the head is especially more effective in the case of larger head sizes and will lead to
a lesser material cost followed by reduced manufacturing costs. Their findings were
also verified experimentally. Khot et al. [7] performed an FEA study to quantify the
role of stiffening ring in a pressure vessel in presence of a nozzle. A nozzle in the
shell of the pressure vessel created instability in that region and add a stiffening ring
in the vicinity of the nozzle will balance this instability.

3 Problem Statement

A pressure vessel has the function to hold gases or fluids at a substantially higher
pressure than the surrounding. A horizontal pressure vessel is supported by two
saddle supports and these saddle supports must hold the weight of the vessel plus
the weight of the fluid as well as the weight of any extra attachments on the vessel
without causing critical stress concentration in the shell of the vessel. A saddle acts
as a stiff support and when the saddle is connected to the vessel there is a sudden
change in the stiffness as the shell is relatively less stiff as compared to the saddle
support. Therefore, we see a stress concentration in the shell of the vessel near the
saddle horn. To reduce the effect of this stress concentration, there is an extended
wear plate added, the wear plate acts as a buffer so that the change in stiffness is not
very drastic. It is the surface of the wear plate that is welded to the shell of the vessel.
In long pressure vessels even after adding the wear plate, there is significant stress
concentration in the vessel at the saddle horn region. To reduce this stress value and
make the vessel acceptable according to international codes, stiffener rings can be
added inside the vessel which makes the entire shell stiffer.
Stiffener rings come in varied shapes and dimensions. The parameters of stiffener
rings that can be changed to study their effect on the maximum stress in vessel are
(1) The cross-sectional shape of the stiffener ring. (2) The cross-section dimensions
of the stiffener ring. (3) The total number of stiffener rings used. (4) The positioning
of the stiffener rings. Choosing an appropriate stiffening ring is very crucial.
A detailed FEA study in which these parameters are changed to notice the changes
caused in the local maximum stress values is not yet done.
This study is important as this will show us the dependence of the maximum stress
values for the different configurations of stiffener rings used. With this knowledge,
we can understand the dependences of the different parameters on the overall stress
distribution in the vessel and then select the best configuration which passes the
ASME code, saving material costs.
524 A. Nayak and P. Singru

4 Objective

The objective of the present study is to do an FEA study and find the trends in local
stress concentration in the shell of a pressure vessel for different configurations of
stiffener rings.
In this study, we considered stiffening ring of square, rectangular and T-cross
section. The square sections selected are 60 mm × 60 mm and 80 mm × 80 mm
in dimension. The rectangular cross section had a dimension of 20 mm × 80 mm
and 30 mm × 60 mm. The T-section had dimensions of 2 × (20 mm × 80 mm)
(Refer Fig. 1). The different configurations that were simulated for all the cross-
section shapes were as follows: two stiffener rings (one above each saddle), three
stiffener rings (one above each saddle and one placed symmetrically between both
the saddles and five stiffener rings (one above each saddle and the remaining three
placed symmetrically between both the saddle supports) (Refer Fig. 2). Along with
these configurations, we also simulated case of two parallel stiffener rings above the

Fig. 1 T cross-section

(a) Two stiffener rings (b) Three stiffener rings

(c) Five stiffener rings

Fig. 2 Different stiffener ring configurations

Effect of Number of Stiffening Rings, Their Position and Cross … 525

(a) Stiffener rings with 10cm gap (b) Stiffener rings aligned with the
(Case A). wear plate (Case B).

Fig. 3 Different parallel stiffener ring configurations

saddle support for the cross section of 20 mm × 80 mm and 30 mm × 60 mm. For

the parallel case, we considered two configurations; first, configuration in which the
distance between the inner faces of the two stiffener rings is 10cm (Refer Fig. 3a)
and the second configuration in which the external faces of the stiffener rings is
aligned with the faces of wear plate (Refer Fig. 3b). For all the configurations, width,
extension and thickness of the wear plate are kept constant.

5 Problem Formulation and Design

The dimensions of the pressure vessel that we considered had an external radius of
2 m, thickness of the vessel was 8 mm, the total length of the pressure vessel from
one tangent end to another was 10 m, the head type selected was Elliptical(2:1), the
head thickness was 12 mm, the position of the saddle from one tangent end was
1.5 m, width of wear plate was 24 cm, thickness of wear plate was 16 mm, width
of saddle support was 20 cm, angle of contact was 120◦ , and the extension of wear
plate was 6◦ on each side. The material that we selected for the Pressure Vessel, the
wear plate and stiffening ring was SA 516 Grade 55. The material properties are as
follows: Density = 7750 kg/m3 , Modulus of elasticity = 200 GPa, Poisons ratio =
0.29, Maximum allowed stress = 207 MPa. These material properties are obtained
from ASME Section II Part D [8]. The operating conditions of the pressure vessel
were considered as follows. Density of fluid = 1000 kg/m3 , Temperature of fluid =
298 K, Operating pressure = 1 MPa.

6 Methodology

In this study, all the saddle support parameters are constant for all the stiffening ring
configurations. A saddle support with an angle of contact 120◦ and an extension of
wear plate of 6◦ on each side was selected. This choice was made because according
to ASME requirements a minimum contact angle of 120◦ is necessary. The aim of
526 A. Nayak and P. Singru

this study is to find the most optimum configuration of saddle to pass the ASME
requirements according to ASME Section VIII Division-2 (Design by Analysis) [1]
while keeping the material costs at the minimum.
The pressure vessel and stiffening rings were modelled in SolidWorks 2019 and
the 3D FEA analysis study was completed in ANSYS 2020R1 [9].
The loading and boundary condition on pressure vessel is as per Fig. 4. Gravity
Load due to self-weight, internal hydrostatic pressure and internal pressure of 1MPa
is considered for the study. There is fixed support at one end of saddle and frictionless
support at the other end (Sliding end). Solid Shell 190 (SOLSH190) elements, shown
in Fig. 5, were used in meshing of the shell and wear plate to give an accurate
representation of bending in the thin shell. SOLSH190 is used for simulating shell
structures with a wide range of thickness (from thin to moderately thick). The element
possesses the continuum solid element topology and features eight-node connectivity
with three degrees of freedom at each node: translations in the nodal x-, y- and z-
directions.
It is a 3D solid element free of locking in bending-dominant situations. Unlike
shell elements, SOLSH190 is compatible with general 3D constitutive relations and
can be connected directly with other continuum elements. SOLSH190 utilizes a

Fig. 4 Sliced Geometry with loading condition in the FEA model

Fig. 5 Schematic of
SOLSH190
Effect of Number of Stiffening Rings, Their Position and Cross … 527

suite of special kinematic formulations, including the assumed strain method (Bathe
and Dvorkin [10]) to overcome locking when the shell thickness becomes extremely
small. SOLSH190 employs enhanced strain formulations (Simo and Rifai [11], Simo
et al. [12]) to improve the accuracy in in-plane bending situations. The satisfaction
of the in-plane patch test is ensured. Incompatible shape functions are used to over-
come the thickness locking. These are the strong reasons to consider SOLSH190 for
analysis of the pressure vessels. Three elements were used along the thickness to
give an accurate representation of the bending of the shell.
The complete model is shown in Fig. 4 is discretized using SOLSH190 with
loading and boundary conditions as mentioned in methodology.
The stress distribution in all 2-stiffener ring configurations, 3-stiffener ring con-
figurations and 5-stiffener ring configurations is similar to that shown in Fig. 6a, b
and c, respectively. Figure 7a shows the stress concentration at the saddle horn region
(no stiffening ring). Figure 7b shows how adding the stiffener rings eliminates the
stress concentration at the saddle horn. Mesh convergence study was done on the
pressure vessel, stiffener rings and the saddle support to confirm the accuracy of the
results up to 0.1% (Table 1).

(a) Two stiffener rings

(b) Three stiffener rings

(c) Five stiffener rings

Fig. 6 Simulation images of different 20 mm × 80 mm stiffening ring configurations

528 A. Nayak and P. Singru

(a) In the case of no stiffening ring. (b) In the case of 20mmx80mm

parallel stiffening rings separated
by 10cm.
Fig. 7 Stress distribution in the saddle region

Table 1 Mesh Convergence test results on the 20 mm × 80 mm parallel stiffening rings separated
by 10 cm configuration
Number of elements Maximum local stress concentration in shell
(MPa)
634492 140.53
1849188 155.08
2131398 158.39
2646714 158.55

7 Results

Maximum stress concentration in the pressure vessel with no stiffening

ring=235.32MPa. Maximum allowed stress value in pressure vessel = 207 MPa.
Table 2 shows maximum local Stress concentration (in MPa) for the different con-
figurations of stiffening rings.
Table 3 shows the maximum local stress concentration (in MPa) for the configu-
rations illustrated by Fig. 3a. In these configurations, there are two parallel stiffener
rings on both the saddle supports.
The stress distribution in all the configurations is similar to that as shown in
Fig. 6. The location of the local circumferential stress concentration in Fig. 7a is at
the saddle horn. Figure 7b shows the stress distribution after adding the stiffener rings.
It is clearly observed that the stress concentration near the saddle horn is reduced
substantially. It is also seen that there is a new local stress concentration, along the
Effect of Number of Stiffening Rings, Their Position and Cross … 529

Table 2 Maximum local Stress concentration (in MPa) for the different configurations of stiffening
rings
No. of stiffener rings 2 3 5
Cross section of the
stiffener rings
20 mm × 80 mm 157.89 157.36 156.42
20 mm × 80 mm 170.87 168.71 167.24
(T-section)
30 mm × 60 mm 182.61 177.69 174.27
60 mm × 60 mm 202.04 198.14 194.85
80 mm × 80 mm 185.65 183.70 182.29

Table 3 Maximum local Stress concentration (in MPa) for the different configurations of parallel
stiffening rings
Position of parallel stiffener Parallel stiffener rings with Parallel stiffener rings with
rings 10 cm gap in between. (Case outer faces aligned with wear
A) plate. (Case B)
Cross section of the stiffener
rings.
20 mm × 80 mm 158.39 179.63
30 mm × 60 mm 160.40 189.63

bottom edge of the stiffening rings in the pressure vessel, but the value of this stress
concentration is way less than the value of stress concentration in the no stiffening
ring case.

8 Conclusions

From the results, we can conclude the following points.

(1) All the stiffening ring configurations reduce the maximum local stress concentra-
tion under the allowable value. The maximum reduction in stress concentration
achieved was equal to 33.5% for the 20 mm × 80 mm and 5 stiffening ring
configurations.
(2) There is no significant decrease in maximum stress concentration if the number
of stiffening rings are increased from 2 to 3 and from 3 to 5. So, adding a greater
number of stiffening rings is not essential and only two stiffening rings will
suffice.
(3) Increasing the thickness of the stiffening ring also does not help in further reduc-
tion in maximum local stress concentration, instead of increasing the thickness
of the stiffener ring gives a lesser reduction in maximum stress values.
 530 A. Nayak and P. Singru

(4) In the case of parallel stiffener rings configuration, it is observed that the value
of maximum local stress found in Case A is lesser than the maximum local stress
values in Case B. Thus, what we can conclude from this point is, it is preferable
to contain the parallel stiffeners within the saddle for better stress reduction.
(5) From the results, we can see that all the stiffening ring configurations have the
value of the maximum stress value below the allowable maximum stress value
making all configurations eligible for use as they all pass the ASME require-
ments according to ASME Section VIII Division-2 (Design by Analysis). So
the optimum configuration must be selected based on the quantity of material
required to manufacture the given configuration to save on material costs. For the
given case, it is found that the two 20 mm × 80 mm stiffener ring configuration
is the best choice as it has one of the lowest maximum local stress concentration
value and also has the least material cost.

References

1. ASME: ASME VIII Division 2 - Alternative Rules - Rules for Construction of Pressure Vessels.
ASME, p. 867 (2017)
2. Zick, L.P.: Stresses in large horizontal cylindrical pressure vessels on two saddle supports.
Press. Vessel. Pip. Des. Anal. 2, 959–970 (1972)
3. Megyesy, E.F.: Pressure_Vessel_Handbook_12th_edition_Eu.pdf (1973)
4. Thattil, M.J., Pany, C.: Design and analysis of pressure vessel with different end domes. Int. J.
Sci., Eng. Technol. Res. 6(8), 1225–1233 (2017)
5. Bhinde, D.N., Rajanarsimha, S.: FEA analysis of pressure vessel with different type of end
connections. J. Emerg. Technol. Innov. Res. 4(02), 95–99 (2017)
6. Golabi, S., Ghorbanpour-Arani, A., Zamani, A.: Numerically studying the effect of stiffening
rings on reducing the thickness of torospherical heads under pressure on their concave side.
Am. J. Appl. Sci. 5(5), 553–558 (2008)
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vessel. Int. J. Sic. Eng. Technol. Res. 5(1) (2016) 332–335
8. ASME: ASME Section II Part-D 2017. ASME (2017)
9. ANSYS: 2020 release (2020)
10. Bathe, K., Dvorkin, E.N.: A formulation of general shell elements the use of mixed interpolation
of tensorial components. Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng. 22(3), 697–722 (1986)
11. Simo, J.C., Rifai, M.S.: A class of mixed assumed strain methods and the method of incom-
patible modes. Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng. 29(8), 1595–1638 (1990)
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elements for 3D finite deformation problems. Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Eng. 110(3–4),
359–386 (1993)

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