Fatigue Analysis of a Hydrogen Pressure Vessel Using ASME BPVC VIII-3 KD-10 and Comparing With the Results of VIII-3 KD-322 Using Degraded S-N Curves

Abstract Stationary pressure vessels for the storage of large volumes of gaseous hydrogen at high pressure (700 bar) are typically manufactured from Cr-Mo steels. The way to calculate their fatigue lifetime is the fracture mechanics approach using ASME Boiler Pressure Vessel Code Section VIII Division 3 Articles KD-10 and KD-4. In this work, in addition to the use of this conventional approach for a hydrogen pressure vessel made of SA-372 Grade J, Class 70 Steel, also ASME Boiler Pressure Vessel Code Section VIII Division 3 Article KD-322 (S-N curves) is used to calculate fatigue lifetime of the vessel made of High Strength Low Alloy (HSLA) steel after considering an upper bound degradation factor of 125.5 times. In order to have a better estimate of the fatigue lifetime of the subject material in hydrogen in certain pressure cycles using S-N curves in air, a degradation function is developed by MATLAB Curve fitter which can 100% predict the results of fracture mechanics approach for design lifetime in hydrogen using S-N curve in air as a guideline.