An Adaptive Growth Method for Shape Refinement: Methodology and Applications to Pressure Vessels and Piping

A simple shape refinement technique for improving strength has been developed. The technique is to deform shapes with growth bulk strain which springs up in proportion with deflection of a strength measure to a basic value in all parts of a body. The scheme for the shape refinement consists of the iteration of the two steps with finite element method: 1) analysis step of a strength measure distribution, and 2) growth deformation step with the growth bulk strain. Numerical experiments on static and dynamic test problems and practical problems of pressure vessel and piping system indicate the effectiveness of this technique for improving strength.