Simulation procedure of high pressure vessels using the wire winding technique

One of the most common techniques for high pressure vessel design (>6000 bar) is the wire winding technique. This process consists on surrounding a cylinder with a flat wire made of high strength steel, reaching to each layer progressively compressive stresses in the inner cylinder. In this way, residual initial compressive stresses in the core of the vessel, in contact with the internal pressure, increase the fatigue life of the installation. Current design codes, as the ASME code (2007 Section VIII – Division 3) include special design requirements as a safety factor against plastic collapse. In particular, this code requires that the analysis shall be performed using numerical methods for cylindrical vessels that have an inner-outer diameters ratio greater than 1.5. In this work, a wire winding simulation methodology for the analysis of high pressure vessels is presented. The simulation procedure has been validated with analytical solutions in linear elastic cases, obtaining very good agreement. Then, the plastic collapse pressure has been obtained using the proposed procedure in order to carry out the ASME code requirements.