Pressure vessels appear in both industry and the private sector as diving cylinder, compressed air receivers, domestic hot water storage tanks, nuclear reactor vessel, recompression chamber and hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber for humans and pets. A hyperbaric chamber is a specific pressure vessel. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a treatment in which the human or animal patient is placed inside a hyperbaric chamber, where atmospheric pressure is increased about one-and-a-half to three times that of the normal atmosphere. Hyperbaric chambers for pets are still rarely found in veterinary hospitals, but the popularity of the treatment will increase when more hospitals integrate chambers into their practices because of reported health benefits. In this study, using three different materials for the production of a hyperbaric pet chamber was investigated in terms of various aspects. Cases where stresses in the cabin wall are based on instead of corrosion tolerance included into formulas for sheet metal thickness calculations of metal-based materials were analyzed by Solid Works. The selection of sheet metal thickness is necessary to provide a safety factor of 1.5, considering the yield strength of the material instead of corrosion tolerance. It is apparent for three materials that sheet metal thicknesses selected according to stresses provide an advantage in terms of weight and cost. Thus, thicknesses suggested by authors are more reliable than those presented numerically. Advantages of PMMA used for the production of these types of cabins are well presented. PMMA cabins are lighter and cheaper than metal-based cabins and because they are transportable. For material thicknesses suggested by authors, PMMA cabins are lighter than steel and aluminum cabins by 74% and 48%, respectively. Furthermore, the use of PMMA instead of steel decreases the total cost by 74%.
Pressure vessel, Hyperbaric chamber, PMMA, Cost analysis, Solid Works
