Simulation of Autofrettage in Curvilinear Coordinates

Pressure vessels subjected to high mechanical loadings can fail due to microscopic crack growth, i.e., stress corrosion cracking. A popular way to increase the crack resistance of a structure is by autofrettage. The standard approach to obtain a numerical solution for the involved fields is to discretize w.r.t. Cartesian coordinates as implemented in common commercial FE programs. However, this approach is computationally costly in comparison to pure elastic simulations—often rendering this method practically unfeasible. The current work shows that autofrettage can be simulated more efficiently in extensive bodies that can be described by a bijective map where certain symmetries are available in load and form. The discretization and the mathematical formalism of this approach in curvilinear coordinates are described. (© 2014 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)