Computer program has been specifically developed to handle, in an efficient and cost effective manner, planar wound pressure vessels fabricated of either boron-epoxy or graphite-epoxy advanced composite materials

Knoell, A. C.

English

Computer program for design and analysis of composite filament wound, axisymmetric pressure vessels considering orthotropic construction of vesse

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Structural design and stress analysis program for advanced composite filament-wound axisymmetric pressure vessels /COMTANK/

1972	 B72-10073 
NASA TECH BRIEF 
NASA Pasadena Office 
NASA Tech Briefs announce new technology derived from the U.S. space program. They are issued to encourage 
commercial application. Tech Briefs are available on a subscription basis from the National Technical Information 
Service, Springfield, Virginia 22151. Requests for individual copies or questions relating to the Tech Brief program may 
be directed to the Technology Utilization Office, NASA, Code KT, Washington, D.C. 20546. 
Structural Design and Stress Analysis Program for Advanced Composite

Filament-Wound Axisymmetric Pressure Vessels (COMTANK) 
The problem: 
To develop a detailed vessel design and perform a 
complex stress analysis of the design in an efficient and 
cost-effective manner. 
The solution: 
A computer program, COMTANK, has been developed 
to design and analyze advance composite filament-wound 
axisymmetric pressure vessels. 
How it's done: 
The program has been specifically developed to handle 
planar-wound pressure vessels fabricated of either boron/ 
epoxy or graphite/epoxy advanced composite material. 
The vessel may or may not contain a cylindrical mid-
section; i.e., the tank configuration may be that of a 
cylinder with dome closures or an oblate spheroid. In 
the former case, provision has been made to accept 
unequal boss openings in the forward and aft domes. 
In general, input to the program must be provided in 
three basic categories: 
(1) tank description, consisting of geometry and 
material property data; 
(2) design loading condition; and 
(3) analysis loading conditions. 
The tank description consists of a definition of overall 
tank geometry and component geometry relating to the 
liner, bosses, and skirt attachments. The design loading 
condition consists of internal pressure only. The analysis 
loading conditions consist of internal pressure, boss line 
loadings, and temperature gradients through the tank 
wall. 
Items (2) and (3) above indicate that it is possible 
to analyze a pressure vessel design for loading conditions 
other than those for which it was designed.
Given the proper input, COMTANK will perform 
computations to provide output that describes a de-
tailed pressure vessel design and stress analysis. The 
vessel design consists of midsurface coordinates defining 
the entire tank and skirt-support element geometry, 
element wall thicknesses throughout the structure, ply 
construction, enclosed volumes, weight breakdowns, 
and material property details relating to filament tape 
wrap angles and coefficients of thermal expansion. The 
stress analysis consists of the entire displacement field 
of the structure, element nodal forces, stress resultants 
and couples, and point stress analysis; giving a detailed 
breakdown of the longitudinal, transverse, and shear 
stress in each layer of the composite at the point of 
consideration. 
The program makes a call for subroutine TICK which 
calculates the CPU time ot a particular run. The user 
will have to supply his own TICK subroutine or remove 
the small amount of logic that utilizes the CPU time: 
Notes: 
I. This program is written in FORTRAN V to be utilized 
on the UNIVAC-i 108, EXEC-8 computer system. 
2. Submitted by: 	 A. C. Knoell 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory 
California Institute of Technology 
Pasadena, California 91103 
(NPO-1 1943) 
3. Inquiries concerning this program should be directed 
to:
COSMIC 
112 Barrow Hall 
University of Georgia 
Athens, Georgia 30601
Category 09 
S
This document was prepared under the sponsorship of the National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration. Neither the United States 
Government nor any person acting on behalf of the Unitrd States 
• 
Government assumes any liability resulting from the use of the 
information contained in this document, or warrants that such use 
will be free from privately owned rights.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19720000073 2020-03-17T03:24:15+00:00Z


Structural design and stress analysis program for advanced composite filament-wound axisymmetric pressure vessels (COMTANK)

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