Analytical solution of thermo-mechanical stresses of multi-layered hollow spherical pressure vessel

Highlights: • An efficient analytical solution of thermo-elastic behaviour of multi-layered spherical pressure vessel was developed. • The analytical solution can be used for FGM spherical pressure vessel. • The analytical results are well validated by FEA results and exact analytical results of FGM spherical vessel. This study demonstrates the use of recursive algorithm to formulate the analytical solution of thermo-mechanical stresses of multi-layered hollow spherical pressure vessel. The results for temperature distribution, radial and tangential stresses of the spherical vessel obtained by using the proposed solution were shown to be in good agreement with the FEA results. Besides that, the proposed technique is also able to demonstrate the stress analysis for spherical vessel made of functionally graded material (FGM). As compared to the stresses results obtained from FGM analytical solution reported in literature, the overall percentage of difference of less than 1% can be achieved.