This was a class assignment, which enabled me to learn how to navigate and use Duke's machine shop. This involved learning various manufacturing techniques, which required using a lathe and a mill, to design and construct a pressure vessel.
Summary
The team was tasked with developing the final design for a liquid pressure vessel to be used in a laboratory setting. As for the constrains and requirements, the vessel had to be designed to hold between 50-60 milliliters of liquid, which was been pressurized to 750 psig. Additionally, the design required the use of an o-ring seal, a threaded connection, and a 1/4" NPT connection for filling and emptying the vessel.
There were no manufacturing considerations beyond machining as this design is custom and was not designed to be built at a large scale. The vessel was constructed from aluminum. It costed less than $75 to source the parts and was designed with a factor of safety of 8.75. The vessel has an outer diameter of 3" and is split into two parts: the cap and the body. The cap, which includes the NPT connection, has a thickness of 3/4" while the body has a length of 5.0". Four steel hex head screws are utilized as a threaded connection between the cap and body. The vessel can hold 55 milliliters of liquid and is sealed with a -323 rubber O-ring. The design will take about two hours of machining to be fully constructed, a 50 percent decrease from estimates that used steel. Further design decisions, safety calculations, and cost considerations are described in the report.
