Aiken Uses Elastic-Plastic FEA to Design Pressure Test Bunkers

Aiken Engineering is evaluating and designing new pressure test bunkers for an international equipment manufacturer. Aiken is testing the dynamic response characteristics of the structures to a high speed projectile using elastic-plastic finite element analysis (FEA) to calculate the energy that the walls can absorb from the projectile. The attached plots show the deformation of a double-walled test bunker after impact by a projectile from a failed test.

In offshore or subsea oil and gas exploration and production environments, projectiles from a failed test can travel tremendous distances at high velocity, putting lives at risk and destroying surrounding structures. The value of performing such analysis is to determine the amount of energy in the projectile and then design protective barriers to safely contain the projectile and protect personnel and physical assets. Elastic plastic analysis is complex — but is superior to other methods of analysis that result in more conservative design — because it can lead to significant savings in material and construction costs, whereas the more conservative method can result in “overkill” and increased cost.