Objectives  This paper aims to discuss the relationship between the ultimate bearing capacity of a pressure hull and pressure tank under the same strength margin, and obtain a matching design with the equivalent ultimate bearing capacity and strength margins accordingly.

  Methods  To this end, a typical external pressure tank is taken as the research object. On the basis of evaluating the stability and ultimate bearing capacity of the initial structural scheme, the influences of the thicknesses of the pressure tank shell, solid floor and transverse bulkhead on the ultimate bearing capacity are studied. The initial scheme is then adjusted to obtain a scheme with the equivalent strength margins of the pressure hull and pressure tank. In this context, the relationship between the ultimate bearing capacity of the pressure hull and pressure tank is discussed. By strengthening the pressure hull to match the ultimate bearing capacities of the pressure tank and pressure hull, the corresponding strength margins are obtained.

  Results  The results show that thinning the pressure tank shell by 30%, solid floor shell by 33.3% and transverse bulkhead shell by 30% reduces the ultimate bearing capacity of the tank by 16.5%, 36.4% and 0.17% respectively.

  Conclusions  As further analyses show, under the condition of the same strength margin, the ultimate bearing capacity of the pressure hull is much lower than that of the pressure tank. When the strength margin of the pressure tank is about 25% and that of the pressure hull is about 40%, the ultimate bearing capacities of the pressure hull and pressure tank are roughly the same.