The lifetime of a long cylindrical shell under external pressure at elevated temperature

This paper is concerned with creep collapse of a long, thin walled, circular, cylindrical shell subjected to external pressure. The problem has been studied by Hoff et al. (1959), where elasticity has been neglected in the material equations. In the present paper it is pointed out that elasticity must not be neglected in stability problems as it may reduce the lifetime considerably. The improved equation for the lifetime of the shell is presented. Moreover, a procedure is indicated to derive the necessary creep parameters easily from usually available creep data. Numerical values of the lifetime of thin-walled, circular, cylindrical shells under external atmospheric pressure are presented for a wide range of shells of different geometrical characteristics for a number of high-temperature alloys and the temperature range up to 1000 degrees C. Experimental results are reported which are in good agreement with the theoretical prediction. (11 refs).