This book is the first monograph focusing on ellipsoidal heads, which are commonly used as an end closure of pressure vessels in chemical, petroleum, nuclear, marine, aerospace and food processing industries. It provides a comprehensive coverage of stress, failure, design and fabrication of ellipsoidal heads. This book investigates in detail buckling/plastic collapse behaviors of ellipsoidal heads using nonlinear finite element methods and experiments. Buckling/plastic collapse experiments are performed on 37 ellipsoidal heads which cover various geometric parameters, material and fabrication methods. In particular, modern measurement technologies, such as 3D laser scanning, are used in the experiments of these ellipsoidal heads including large heads with a diameter up to 5 metres. Moreover, this book presents new formulas for accurate prediction of buckling/plastic collapse pressures of ellipsoidal heads. Using elastic-plastic theory, this book proposes a new failure mechanism-based method for design of ellipsoidal heads. Compared to other methods in current codes and standards based on elastic or perfectly plastic theory, the new design method can fully develop the head’s load-carrying capacity, which reduces head thickness and thus cost. Also, this book studies control on fabrication quality of ellipsoidal heads, including shape deviation, forming strain and forming temperature. It is useful as a technical reference for researchers and engineers in the fields of engineering mechanics, engineering design, manufacturing engineering and industrial engineering.
