bearing block 



bearing blocl< 



Figures. Engineering concept of a 

 stack ed-ring cylindrical 

 pressure vessel with continuous- 

 yoke end-closure restraint. 



Figure 4. Typical laminated yoke. 



hydrostatic pressurization of the 

 vessel the end closures bear directly 

 against the yoke, the end-closure 

 assemblies can be designed to 

 utilize this bearing stress to their 

 advantage. 



A typical design that utilizes 

 the bearing stress of the end closure 

 against the yoke is shown in 

 Figures. Here the yoke acts upon 

 a bearing block that distributes the 

 bearing stresses evenly over the area 

 of the flat end-closure disc. Because 

 of the even bearing pressure, equal 

 in magnitude to the internal hydro- 

 static pressure, the end closures 

 can be thin, as they are not required 

 to withstand any bending moments 

 or shear loads. Its sole function is 

 simply to act as a free-floating seal 

 piston, within the cylindrical vessel, 

 while the bearing block functions 

 only as a load distributor and spacer. 



Since the yoke can be, and 

 generally is made quite massive to 

 lower the tensile stresses in it, low- 

 carbon hot-rolled steel suffices for 

 this application. To lower the cost 

 of fabrication, such a yoke is gener- 

 ally assembled from many thin 

 plates (Figure 4) in which the proper 

 opening has been cut, or it is built 

 up by winding steel bands (Figure 5) 

 around a yoke frame. In either case, 

 the nominal tensile stresses are very 

 low, and the high ductility of the 

 low-carbon steel tends to prevent 

 stress concentrations from gener- 

 ating fractures. Thus from the 

 engineering research viewpoint, 

 the yokes are not worth an explor- 

 atory investigation as their design, 



