The stabilisation of the steel liner of a prestressed concrete pressure vessel

The thin steel liner of a nuclear reactor concrete pressure vessel is likely to buckle inward as the concrete is prestressed. This paper deals with the case of a hollow cylinder of infinite length. After analysis of the equilibrium states of the shell it is concluded that buckling can be suppressed by anchoring the shell to the concrete with the anchors spaced circumferentially at Sp = 2.5t/√ϵ, where t is the thickness of the shell and ϵ is the circumgerential strain imposed by prestressing. The maximum value of ϵ for which no pegging is needed is given by ϵ0 = 0.5(t/R)1.2, where R is the radius of the vessel. The analysis has been verified experimentally.