Is a pressure vessel more likely to fail from repeated cycles of low pressure or a one off high pressure spike?

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Design
1

Is a pressure vessel more likely to fail from repeated cycles of low pressure or a one off high pressure spike?

2

Any material will experience a reduction in strength under cyclical loading (fatigue analysis).

So I would be asking what’s more likely:

  1. the number of cycles to failure under the specified stress cycles is reached
  2. OR, the peak-pressure condition occurs which creates more stress than the maximum static yield strength of the material.

Using that you could answer this question.

To add more context, the number of cycles to failure under a cyclical loading condition can be characterized by a S-N curve. Materials subject to loading cycles will fail at a fatigue strength; depending on the number of cycles, the fatigue strength can go up or down.

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If it’s strictly a single, high pressure spike, you can equate that to either the yield strength (when a material plastically deforms, could be the instance of failure) or the ultimate strength (when a material fractures).