Radial vs circumferential thermal stress

[anlafuente]

Hi there

I was wondering if someone could give me some insight on the following question.

Suppose you have a radially asymmetric heat flux in the outer surface of a pipe. The inner surface is cooled. This will give you two temperature gradients; one across the pipe thickness and one along the circumference. Assume you adjust parameters so that both gradients are the same. Which stresses will dominate, those due to the radial gradient (across thickness) or those due to the circumferential gradient (from front to back of the tube).

I want to say that the formers will dominate but don't quite find a physical explanation for it.

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[Navin A S]

in advance!In this case, the radial stresses will likely dominate due to the fact that a pipe is usually designed to be much stronger in the radial direction than in the circumferential direction. This is because the radial stresses are more likely to cause buckling or failure of the pipe than the circumferential stresses. The radial stresses will also be higher due to the fact that the temperature gradient will be larger across the thickness of the pipe than it will be along the circumference.