Progress report on the PVRC 3D stress criteria guidelines project

This paper summarizes progress on a portion of the Final Report for a Pressure Vessel Research Council (PVRC) Project on Three Dimensional Stress Criteria Guidelines. The paper covers: Area (1) failure mechanism relationship to stress categories, Pm, PL, Pb and Q; Area (2) determining appropriate stresses for each stress category; Area (3) determining appropriate locations for evaluation of each stress category; Area (4) calculating membrane-plus-bending (linearized) stresses. The example analyses include a two-dimensional axisymmetric cone-cylinder intersection and a three-dimensional nozzle-thick-shell intersection. Tentative guidelines, based on the results for two examples, are provided with respect to each of the four ''areas'' for each geometry