The effect of creep ratchetting on thin shells

This paper studies the behavior of thin shells, in particular, cylindrical and spherical shells, which are subjected to a long-time cyclic thermal gradient. Like many reactor components (shells) which are subjected to start-up and shut-down conditions, provided the temperature is high enough, the shell will exhibit a progressive growth with each cycle of temperature. This phenomena is often referred to as ratchetting and is caused by inelastic strains developed by creep. Although the thermal stress distribution is biaxial, it is possible to represent the material behavior using a simple uniaxial-stress model. Assuming thermal stress interaction occurs, the equations which determine the solution of the strain growth and stress per cycle are presented. The flexibility of the analysis provides a means for including the effects of an arbitrary temperature-cycle time and temperature dependence of material properties. A step temperature variation is considered. (Auth.)