Special Issue on Pressure Vessels Technology Applied to Gun Tubes

The last open conference with a focus on large caliber gun tube design took place in 1983; since then there have been significant technological and strategic developments. The GT2002 conference at Keble College, Oxford, England, September 2002 focussed upon such developments and future requirements. Technical papers from the conference are included in this special issue. The 21st Century will require rapid reaction, mobility and technological effectiveness. This implies weight reduction and more extreme firing environments, including operating pressures, temperatures and chemistry. Specific issues relating to material behavior include experimental testing of current and candidate gun steels with particular emphasis upon the Bauschinger effect. The autofrettage process is analyzed in depth. The impact of the Bauschinger effect upon residual stress fields is the subject of several papers, while other authors address the use of autofrettage for quality control and the determination of stress intensity factors for cracks in complex autofrettage residual...