Finite Element Analysis of Stress Distribution in Pressure Vessels under Internal Pressure

This paper presents a finite element examination of the stress distribution in a cylindrical pressure-vessel segment under internal pressure based on the real simulation results received from the cloud-based platform SimScale. A three-dimensional linear static structural model was solved with the platform’s integration of the Code Aster solver, employing an automatically generated unstructured tetrahedral mesh of approximately 1600 elements. A permanent support was put on one end of the vessel to prevent rigid-body motion. An internal pressure was supplied on the inside surface. Three pressure values of 1, 2 and 3 MPa were simulated. The corresponding peak von Mises stresses extracted from post-processing were 4.35 MPa, 8.70 MPa, and 13.06 MPa, respectively. The results demonstrate a strongly linear pressure–stress relationship (best-fit slope ≈ 4.355 MPa/MPa; intercept ≈ −0.007 MPa; R2 ≈ 0.9999996), consistent with linear elasticity and proportionate loading. Stress contours show that the maximum equivalent stress occurs at the inner wall, which is consistent with thick-cylinder elasticity where hoop stress is highest at the bore and drives the distortion-energy measure. Mesh-related influences, boundary-condition-induced gradients near the constrained end, and the limitations of linear modeling are critically assessed, and extensions to nonlinear plasticity and burst-pressure prediction are proposed.