Abstract:
Abstract: This paper presents the numerical and experimental results of the
mechanical and microstructural properties of liquefied petroleum gas cylinders from
local sources. The tensile strength, burst and fracture toughness of the materials were
also investigated. The results show that the carbon content for all samples averaged
~0.22 wt% and manganese ~0.76 wt% and the microstructure was largely pearlitic.
The tensile strength showed that LPG-C3 recorded high tensile strength of ~ 611 MPa
and hardness of ~ 200 HV while LPG-C5 recorded low tensile strength of ~ 450 MPa. The
finite element analysis (FEA) showed fracture toughness of ,5 � 105MPa.mm0.5 for
LPG-C2 and the energy release rate of ~2 � 106J/m2 for LPG-C5. All samples exhibited
high resilience to crack propagation which showed ductile fracture after tensile test.
The implications of the results are discussed to elaborate on the influence of carefully
controlling the alloying elements of LPG cylinder materials on their mechanical and
microstructures during fabrication.
