Abstract
The current method for designing acrylic pressure vessel components relies upon an empirical method developed through experimentation during the 1960’s and 70’s. The method is detailed in ASME PVHO-1, Safety Standard for Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy. One of the factors restricting the design methodology to experimental correlation was the structural dimensions. Thick wall pressure vessel geometry prevented the use of conventional Section VIII pressure vessel calculations, which assumes thin wall pressure vessels. Early Finite Element Analysis (FEA) models of acrylic windows could not be validated through experimentation. This was attributed to the viscoelastic properties of acrylics. The resulting experiment-based PVHO-1 Safety Standard has a proven safety record but is not readily updated. This paper re-examines some of the work used to develop PVHO-1 to demonstrate modern nonlinear FEA and V&V techniques can predict the results of the original work. In doing so, this work also validates the use of FEA going forward for Design By Analysis (DBA) using Verification and Validation (V&V) for newer materials, shapes, and applications.
