A lower bound to the creep rupture time of pressurised thick cylinders

A lower bound to the creep rupture time of internally pressurised thick cylinders is derived. Material behaviour is described by a phenomenological creep rupture theory that accounts for all phases of creep, and for the full coupling between the deformation and damage processes. To obtain the desirable lower bound, the effective stress and the equivalent rupture stress, which represent the effects of multiaxial stress states on the creep strain and damage rates, respectively, were approximated by the maximum shear stress in the constitutive equations. By comparing the lower bound estimations for a wide range of cylinder dimensions and different engineering materials with the rupture times determined from accurate finite element calculations, it is shown that the lower bound estimations provide quite conservative lifetime predictions.