Marine Structures 29 (2012) 169–176

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Marine Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/
marstruc

Experimental verification of the new ultimate strength

equation of spherical pressure hullsq
B.B. Pan, W.C. Cui*, Y.S. Shen
China Ship Scientific Research Center, P.O. Box 116, No. 222 East Shanshui Road, Wuxi, Jiangsu 214082, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In a previous study, a new empirical formula for the ultimate
Received 14 December 2011 strength of the titanium alloy spherical pressure hulls of deep
Received in revised form 29 March 2012 manned submersibles is recommended. This formula is mainly
Accepted 5 May 2012
derived from the systematic finite element analyses of ANSYS. This
paper introduces the further experimental verification of this new
Keywords:
equation. Four small spheres of inner diameters 500 mm are tested
Spherical pressure hull
to collapse. The collapse load range is predicted before the test and
Manned submersible
Ultimate strength all the four final test results are within the range. The work shows
Design rules that the predictions by the new equation are in well agreement
with the experimental results. This suggests that the new equation
can be used as the core equation to update current design rules.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The manned pressure hull is the most critical component of a deep manned submersible. It provides
a safe living space for pilots and scientists under the deep sea pressure and its weight occupies almost
1/3 total weight of the manned submersible. Thus the manned pressure hull should be designed to
have enough strength and should be as light as possible. Spherical pressure hull is the most commonly
used type of pressure hull for deep manned submersibles. The strength and stability of spherical
pressure hulls have been studied since 1915 [1], and a brief overview about these researches has been
carried out [2]. In order to design a new 4500 m manned submersible, current available design rules for
spherical pressure hull from various classification societies have been compared. Significantly different

q Foundation item: Supported by the National High-Tech 863 Program (2009AA093303).

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wccui@sjtu.edu.cn (W.C. Cui).

0951-8339/$ – see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.marstruc.2012.05.007
170 B.B. Pan et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 169–176

Notation

R internal mean radius of the sphere (R ¼ 250 in this paper)

t thickness of sphere
P constant external pressure
Pu ultimate load
Pup the upper bound of the ultimate load or the ultimate load of perfect spherical hulls
sy yield strength of the material
su ultimate strength of the material
D the deviation between actual spherical surface and ideal spherical surface

design results have been found from different design rules, and many existing spherical pressure hulls
are found not to be in compliance with most of the current design rules [3]. Then a systematic study of
finite element analysis (FEA) on the ultimate strength of spherical hulls under external pressure was
carried out, an empirical formula which estimates the collapse pressure of titanium spherical pressure
hull with out-of-roundness is established through regression of FEA results. The finite element analysis
model had been validated by several model test results carried out by Japanese researchers [5].
However, the empirical formula has not been validated by Chinese titaniums and the corresponding
manufacture qualities. It is the purpose of this paper to carry out the experimental verification. Four
small spheres of inner diameters 500 mm produced in China with Chinese brands of titaniums are
tested to collapse. The collapse load ranges are predicted before the tests in order to check the
performance of the empirical formula. The prediction results of the formula are compared with the test
results.

2. Test preparation

The tests are carried out on four model spherical pressure hulls, the inner diameter of all model
hulls is near F ¼ 500 mm (R ¼ 250 mm) and there is a forge opening strengthened component on each
hull, as shown in Fig. 1. According to the data provided by manufacturers, these four hulls are named
1#w4#. 1# and 2# are manufactured with TC4 (also known as Ti–6Al–4V) during the design of

Fig. 1. F ¼ 500 mm spherical pressure hull used in model test (4#).

 B.B. Pan et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 169–176 171

manned submersible “Jiaolong”, and 1# had been tested up to a pressure level of 52 MPa without
failure. 3# is made by the same manufacturer of 1# and 2#, but 3# is made with different kind of
titanium alloy-Ti80 (Ti-6Al-0.8Mo–2Zr–3Nb). 4# is made by another manufacturer with TC4ELI.
Before the test, several preparations should be made: the material properties of the hull should be
obtained, the thickness of the hull should be measured, and the Out-Of-Roundness (OOR) of the hull
should be measured. With this information, the collapse pressure of the hull can be calculated, and the
calculation result can be used to approximately determine the pressure range of the test.
The proposed collapse pressure equation in ref. [4] is:
    
D D su t su t
Pu ¼ 1k Pup ¼ 1k þ (1)
R R R Rm

     2  2  3  3
D t D t D t
c
d þj þf g h
k ¼ a þ be R R R R R R (2)
Where:
a ¼ 15.63 b ¼ 606.6 c ¼ 264 6d ¼ 72.72 j ¼ 3e4 f ¼ 882.5 g ¼ 1.2e6 h ¼ 3969

2.1. Material properties of the tested hulls

Because 1# and 2# were manufactured several years ago, the manufacturer can just provide the
material properties of the base TC4 alloy and the welding joint factor (WJF) was assumed be 1.0. 3# and
4# are manufactured specifically for this purpose, the reports of both hulls are complete, and the
material properties of hull base and welding joint are provided in the manufacturer’s report. All
available material properties are listed in Table 1. There the material properties are the mean value of 3
standard cylinder tensile test specimens that along the chord wise direction of the shell (because the
thickness of the shell is very small, and it is hard to make radial wise direction test specimens), and the
properties of weld component are measured from test specimens of the welded joints. All tensile tests
were carried out by the manufacture of the shell and the test process follows the national tensile test
standard of China.

2.2. Shell thickness of test hulls

In order to predict the collapse pressure of the test hulls, shell thickness of the hulls should be
provided. We use ultrasonic thickness gauge (PANAMETRICS-NDT-26MG, precision of 0.01) to measure
the thickness of all four test hulls, and the ultrasonic thickness gauge is calibrated by the end closure of
each hull before thickness measurement. The typical measurement grid is shown in Fig. 2. To hull 1#,
the results of our measurement meet the existing shell thickness measurement report of 1# quite well.
Thus the thickness values of existing shell thickness measurement report of 1#are used. To 2#, 3# and
4#, measurements show that the thicknesses in previous shell thickness measurement reports of these
hulls are less than our measurement results, and this conflict exists in all repeated measurements, thus
the thickness values of our measurements are used, as shown in Table 2. A typical thickness
measurement profile is given in Table A1.

Table 1
Material property of test hulls.

Hull # 1#(TC4) 2#(TC4) 3#(Ti80) 4#(TC4ELI)

Yield strength of hull base material: ss (MPa) 925 925 890 888.33
Tensile strength of hull base material: sb (MPa) 990 990 958.33 925
Yield strength of weld component: ss (MPa) WJFz1.0 WJFz1.0 788.33 770
Tensile strength of weld component: sb (MPa) WJFz1.0 WJFz1.0 861.67 850
172 B.B. Pan et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 169–176

Fig. 2. Typical grid of shell thickness and OOR measurement.

2.3. Out-of-roundness of test hulls

To 1#, 2# and 3#, the out-of-roundness is measured by three coordinates measuring instrument
(HEXAGON) with nearly the same grid of Fig. 2, as shown in Fig. 3(only the OORs of south hemisphere
and whole sphere are measured, because it is hard to fasten the sphere to measure the OOR of north
hemisphere). After measuring the X-Y-Z coordinates of all grid points, the sphere is fitted automatically
by the three coordinates measuring instrument, then the mean outside diameter and the maximum
deviation of the shell are calculated. To 4#, because the outside surface of the hull is grinded after
welding, the actual out-of-roundness of the hull is immeasurable (after grinding, the outside surface of
the shell that used to be nearly parallel with the inside surface is machined, the thickness of the shell is
changed, and the OOR measured from the outside surface will be different from the OOR measured
from the inside surface), thus out-of-roundness data in the report provided by the manufacturer of 4#
is used (the measurement procedure is shown in Fig. 4). Out-of-roundnesses of all four test hulls are
listed in Table 3.

3. Test procedure

After the necessary information is obtained, all test hulls are sent to the pressure chamber lab. The
strain gauges are pasted on the outside surface of test hulls. Then watertight and insulation tests should
be made. After all test equipment and procedure are checked to be fine, the test hull is put into the
pressure chamber, and the test is carried out one by one, as shown in Fig. 5.
When the test is being carried out, the test hull in the pressure chamber will be pressurized
according to pressurized cycle as shown in Fig. 6. In cycle 1, cycle 2 and early stage of cycle 3, the step of
pressure increase is 5 MPa, and each pressure step will be maintained for 3 min. But when the pressure

Table 2
Shell thickness of test hulls.

Hull # 1# 2# 3# 4#
t of north hemisphere (mm) 8.23–8.68 9.42–9.71 9.56–9.87 9.28–9.47
Average t of north hemisphere (mm) 8.3671 9.5916 9.7373 9.3763
t of south hemisphere (mm) 7.96–8.73 9.41–9.79 9.52–9.76 9.06–10.1
Average t of south hemisphere (mm) 8.4849 9.5824 9.5827 9.2436
 B.B. Pan et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 169–176 173

Fig. 3. Out-of-roundness measurement of test hulls.

increases near to the predicted collapse pressure or significant nonlinear strain–stress relation appears,
the step of pressure increase will be reduced to 3 MPa, 1 MPa or even 0.5 MPa to capture the actual
collapse pressure as accurate as possible.

4. Test results

All four test hulls are pressurized to collapse, and the collapse pressure is recorded, the collapsed
test hulls are shown in Fig. 7, and the test collapse pressure and previous predicted pressure calculated
by Eq. (1) and Eq. (2) are listed in Table 4.
To machined thin pressure hulls, the thinnest shell usually occurs near the equatorial welding joint
of north hemisphere and south hemisphere, because the deformation of the opening equator of the
hemisphere is difficult to control during machining operation. Furthermore, the equatorial welding
joint usually makes the strength of the material near the joint weaker. Thus the weakness point of the
hull usually occurs near the equatorial welding joint. According to the observation and stress–strain

Fig. 4. Out-of-roundness measurement of 4#.

174 B.B. Pan et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 169–176

Table 3
Out-Of-Roundness (OOR) of test hulls.

Hull # 1# 2# 3# 4#
OOR of south hemisphere 0.2868 0.3292 0.2597 –
OOR of whole hull 0.6132 1.8124a 1.0625 0.6b
a
To 2#, the error between OOR of hemisphere and whole sphere is large, and the OOR of whole sphere is larger than allowable
value (250*0.5% ¼ 1.25 mm). According to our observation, there is observable misalignment at the equatorial welding joint of
south and north hemisphere.
b
This data is provided by the manufacturer of 4#.

curve of our collapse tests, the collapse begins near the weakest point of the test hull which causes by
thinnest shell and strength reduction of welding joint. As shown in Fig. 7 and 1# and 2# break into
pieces after the implosion, and this reflects the plasticity and toughness of the TC4 material manu-
factured several years ago is poor. 3# and 4# break at the two welding joint of the hull, and most
material of the hull remains ‘connected’, and this reflects that the plasticity and toughness of the new
Ti80 and TC4ELI materials from our manufacturers have been improved. To 2#, the misaligned
equatorial welding joint tears and makes the north and south hemisphere break apart.
In Table 4, the lower bound of the predicted collapse pressure is calculated by the lowest thickness,
the lowest material properties of base hull and welding joint, and the out-of-roundness of whole
spherical test hull. The upper bound of collapse pressure is calculated by the smaller one of the average
thickness of north hemisphere and south hemisphere, the upper material properties of base hull and
welding joint, and the out-of-roundness of the south hemisphere of test hulls. It can be found that the
predicted collapse pressure meets the test results well.

Fig. 5. Hulls being put into pressure chamber.

 B.B. Pan et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 169–176 175

Fig. 6. Pressurized cycle.

Fig. 7. Collapsed test hulls.

Table 4
Comparison of test and calculated collapse pressure.

Hull # 1# 2# 3# 4#
Predicted collapse pressure (MPa) 52.8–56.4 55.5–56.9a 53.8–60.4 52.9–59
Test collapse pressure (MPa) 56 58.29 57.8 55
a
This upper bound of collapse pressure is calculated by the out-of-roundness of the whole spherical test hulls (including the
misalignment at the equatorial welding joint of south and north hemisphere). If the out-of-roundness of the south hemisphere is
used to calculate the upper bound, the calculated upper bound will be 68.7 MPa.
176 B.B. Pan et al. / Marine Structures 29 (2012) 169–176

5. Summary and conclusion

The purpose of this paper is to verify the previously proposed empirical formula for the ultimate
strength prediction of titanium spherical pressure hulls. Four small spheres with an inner diameter
F ¼ 500 mm of titanium alloys under external pressure hulls are tested to collapse. The collapse loads
are compared with the predictions made before the tests in order to validate its predictability. From the
comparison, one can see that the test collapse pressure is within the ranges calculated by the empirical
formula. During the test, it is observed that the collapse happened at the weakness point of the hull,
thus the shell thickness of the actual hull should be restricted to be not less than the required thickness,
and the welding joint of the hull should be tested carefully and make sure that the strength of the
whole welding joint (including welding core, weld interface, and heat affected zone (HAZ)) meets the
design requirement. According to the test result of 2#, the misalignment at the welding joint also
affects the collapse pressure and should be limited in an acceptable range. When this kind of
misalignment is not very large, it can be treated as part of out-of-roundness of the whole spherical
pressure hull.

Appendix A. Typical thickness profile (#4)

Table A1
Thickness profile of #4.

1 2 3 4 5þ 5(WJ) 5- 6 7 8 9 10 0
A 9.32 9.41 9.40 9.37 9.28 10.54 9.22 9.20 9.27 9.29 9.31 9.32 10.10
B 9.36 9.42 9.43 9.36 9.34 10.42 9.10 9.13 9.22 9.29 9.32 9.31
D 9.33 9.41 9.39 9.32 9.32 10.67 9.06 9.14 9.20 9.22 9.29 9.31
E 9.33 9.42 9.40 9.36 9.36 10.08 9.10 9.12 9.16 9.20 9.26 9.29
F 9.38 9.43 9.40 9.35 9.33 10.18 9.20 9.11 9.15 9.22 9.26 9.29
H 9.36 9.42 9.40 9.37 9.32 10.24 9.19 9.09 9.16 9.23 9.28 9.29
I 9.36 9.45 9.45 9.38 9.35 10.48 9.14 9.15 9.15 9.23 9.29 9.31
J 9.42 9.43 9.43 9.38 9.33 11.06 9.08 9.13 9.17 9.24 9.28 9.30
L 9.37 9.43 9.47 9.38 9.35 10.42 9.16 9.16 9.22 9.25 9.32 9.32
M 9.36 9.43 9.42 9.37 9.29 10.03 9.23 9.21 9.25 9.29 9.32 9.33
N 9.35 9.41 9.42 9.33 9.34 10.90 9.19 9.21 9.26 9.30 9.33 9.32
Q 9.34 9.41 9.39 9.35 9.30 11.30 9.30 9.22 9.26 9.30 9.31 9.35

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