Optimization of the Closure-Weld Region of Cylindrical Containers for Long-Term Corrosion Resistance Using the Successive Heuristic Quadratic Approximation Technique^*

Welded cylindrical containers are susceptible to stress corrosion cracking (SCC) in the closure-weld area. An induction coil heating technique may be used to relieve the residual stresses in the closure-weld. This technique involves localized heating of the material by the surrounding coils. The material is then cooled to room temperature by quenching. A two-dimensional axisymmetric finite element model is developed to study the effects of induction coil heating and subsequent quenching. The finite element results are validated through an experimental test. The container design is tuned to maximize the compressive stress from the outer surface to a depth that is equal to the long-term general corrosion rate of the container material multiplied by the desired container lifetime. The problem is subject to several geometrical and stress constraints. Two different solution methods are implemented for this purpose. First, an off-the-shelf optimization software is used. The results however were unsatisfactory because of the highly nonlinear nature of the problem. The paper proposes a novel alternative: the Successive Heuristic Quadratic Approximation (SHQA) technique. This algorithm combines successive quadratic approximation with an adaptive random search within varying search space. SHQA promises to be a suitable search method for computationally intensive, highly nonlinear problems.