Pressure Vessels and Piping

Failure Modes and Stresses of Pressur Vessels and Piping

“What introduces the failure of structures?” If this were investigated sufficiently and understood, it would be possible to design and construct structures which would never fail under any kind of loading.

The purpose of this book is to explain the basic relationship between possible failure modes and stresses in pressure vessels and piping. In this meaning, this book neither intends to describe the technical background of specific design codes and standards, nor to describe the high level technical matters of each failure mode. The aim of this book is to explain the basic matters which structural engineers need to understand, especially relationships between possible failure modes and stresses. The author has tried to explain plainly with many examples of failure accidents to help understanding.

This book was edited mainly about pressure vessels and piping in process plants. However, from the view point of structural engineering, the technical description of this book will be useful for nuclear power plants. There are also several chapters to describe the failure modes at elevated temperature, such as creep rupture and creep-fatigue damage, which are usually evaluated based on the technique developed for fast breeder reactors (FBR). Therefore, engineers related to pressure vessels and piping not only in process plant but also in nuclear power plants are expected to understand this book, and then to understand in more detail each failure mode by reference to more detailed technical books and papers.