APPLICATION OF THE PLANNED EXPERIMENT FOR DETERMINING THE STRESS INTENSITY FACTOR IN VESSEL HEADS USING FEM ANALYSIS
<p style="text-align: justify;">This paper deals with the numerical determination of the stress intensity factor KI for meridional cracks on the ellipsoidal head of pressure vessels. The experiment was carried out according to selected parameters, including vessel diameter, wall thickness and pressure. The analysis of the results concluded that the cylindrical segment of the ellipsoidal head and the crown of the ellipsoidal head are the most critical places for the appearance of cracks, exposed to tensile stresses. Regression analysis determined that the internal pressure has the greatest influence on the KI factor, while the diameter of the vessel is also significant for the crown of the ellipsoidal head. The conducted experiments confirm the obtained regression models, although deviations attributed to the imperfections of the numerical simulations were observed. Despite this, it is concluded that the obtained values of the KI factor are satisfactorily accurate.</p>