An alternative way to support horizontal pressure vessels subject to thermal loading

1998 ◽  
Vol 75 (8) ◽  
pp. 617-623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alwyn S. Tooth ◽  
John S.T. Cheung ◽  
Heong W. Ng ◽  
Lin S. Ong ◽  
Chithranjan Nadarajah
Author(s):  
Alwyn S. Tooth ◽  
John S. T. Cheung ◽  
Heong W. Ng ◽  
Lin S. Ong ◽  
Chithranjan Nadarajah

When storing liquids at high temperature, in horizontal vessels, the current design methods aim to minimise the thermal stresses by introducing a sliding surface at the base of one of the twin saddle supports. However, regular site maintenance is required to ensure that adequate sliding is achieved This may be difficult and costly to carry out. The aim of the present work, therefore, is to dispense with the sliding support and to provide saddle designs which although fixed to the platform, or foundation, do not result in the storage/pressure vessel being over-stressed when thermal loading occurs. The paper provides general recommendations for the most appropriate saddle geometries, and details the way in which ‘Design by Analysis’ and ‘Fatigue Life Assessments’ may be carried out using the stresses which arise from these designs.


1980 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-557
Author(s):  
Krishna P. Singh ◽  
V. K. Luk

Saddle supports of horizontally mounted pressure vessels, when subject to seismic and mechanical loads, interact with the foundation in a highly non-linear manner. The maximum foundation concrete pressure, and hold-down bolt stresses are important design considerations which often govern the vessel support geometry. A method is given herein to determine the foundation stresses due to arbitrary imposed loadings. The solution procedure lends itself easily to automated computation—a highly desirable feature—since most nuclear equipment has to be analyzed for a large number of loading conditions.


Author(s):  
Gabriel A. Vivas ◽  
Armando J. Moret ◽  
Roberto E. Bello ◽  
Luis M. Melian ◽  
Julian J. Bedoya

Coke drums are thin-walled pressure vessels that experience low cycle fatigue due to thermal loadings. The delayed coking process is comprised by three major stages: heating, coking and cooling, which repeat at intervals between 20 and 48 hours. The cyclic changes of temperature increase the growth of bulges and cracks which with the passing of time, propagate and eventually cause failures due to the loss of containment. A better understanding of the phenomena of the thermal gradients and their influence on the generated stresses would reduce the effects of the damage mechanisms afflicting coke drums, for example; a continuous monitoring system could be implemented in order to control the cooling ramp to obtain a more homogeneous quenching around the cylinder of the coke drum and consequently increase its lifetime. It is been widely accepted that there is a relationship between high cooling rates in isolated zones and high axial stresses. However, this relationship has not been fully validated, since there are also been reported events of low cooling rates and high stresses. This study shows a predictable behavior (trend) that relates the spatial thermal gradients and the axial and circumferential stresses generated. A coke drum in an upgrader facility was instrumented with two arrays or grids, each of them having 24 thermocouples and 2 strain gauges in zones with distinct bulges. One arrangement was located at an inward bulge while the other was located at an outward bulge. Computational models were carried out to reproduce the behavior of the instrumented zones with their actual deformations obtained from laser scanning. Finite element models were developed using a sequentially coupled thermo-mechanical analysis to determine the transient temperature and stress distributions. The effect of the circumferential thermal gradients on the stress levels in the instrumented cylindrical sections were analyzed, considering two cases; the first of them a perfect cylinder (without deformation) and the second one considering the presence of bulges in the area of interest. The results indicate that there is a relationship between the circumferential thermal gradients [°C/m] or [°F/ft] and the axial stress levels, i.e., cold zones generate axial tensile stresses, and hot zones produce compressive axial stresses. This relationship is affected — exacerbated or counteracted — by the presence of the bulges. Additionally, the results obtained in this paper confirm those of previous investigations showing that outward bulges subject to pressure and thermal loading generate high stresses on its internal surface and low stresses on its external face whereas inward bulges produce the opposite effect.


Author(s):  
Shunji Kataoka ◽  
Takuya Sato

Creep-fatigue damage is one of the dominant failure modes for pressure vessels and piping used at elevated temperatures. In the design of these components the inelastic behavior should be estimated accurately. An inelastic finite element analysis is sometimes employed to predict the creep behavior. However, this analysis needs complicated procedures and many data that depend on the material. Therefore the design is often based on a simplified inelastic analysis based on the elastic analysis result, as described in current design codes. A new, simplified method, named, Stress Redistribution Locus (SRL) method, was proposed in order to simplify the analysis procedure and obtain reasonable results. This method utilizes a unique estimation curve in a normalized stress-strain diagram which can be drawn regardless of the magnitude of thermal loading and constitutive equations of the materials. However, the mechanism of SRL has not been fully investigated. This paper presents results of the parametric inelastic finite element analyses performed in order to investigate the mechanism of SRL around a structural discontinuity, like a shell-skirt intersection, subjected to combined secondary bending stress and peak stress. This investigation showed that SRL comprises a redistribution of the peak and secondary stress components and that although these two components exhibit independent redistribution behavior, they are related to each other.


Author(s):  
A. Martin ◽  
S. Bosse ◽  
F. Lestang

Integrity evaluation methods for nuclear Reactor Pressure Vessels (RPVs) under Pressurised Thermal Shock (PTS) loading are applied by French Utility. They are based on the analysis of the behaviour of cracks under PTS loading conditions due to the emergency cooling during PTS transient like SBLOCA. This paper explains the Research and Development program started at Electricite´ De France about the cooling phenomena of a PWR vessel after a Pressurised Thermal Shock. The numerical results are obtained with the E.D.F ThermalHydraulic code (Code_Saturne) coupled with the thermal-solid code SYRTHES to take into account the conjugate heat transfer on the cooling of the vessel. We first explain the global methodology with a progress report on the state of the art of the tools available to simulate the different scenari displayed within the frame of the plant life project in order to reassess the integrity of the RPV, taking into account the evolution of some input data, such as the new value of end of life (EOL) fluence, the feedback results of surveillance program and the evolution of the functional requirements. The main results are presented and are related to the evaluation of the RPV integrity during a Small Break Loss Of Coolant Accident transient for 900 and 1300 MWe nuclear plant. On the whole, the main purpose of the numerical CFD studies is to accurately estimate the distribution of fluid temperature in the down comer and the heat transfer coefficients on the inner RPV surface for a fracture mechanics computation which will subsequently assess the associated RPV safety margins. In a second time, a new analysis is performed to assess an accurate temperature distribution in the RPV. Indeed, from a physical phenomena point of view, the EDF thermalhydraulic tool Code_Saturne is now qualified in order to assess single phase transient but in the case where the cold legs are partially filled with steam, it becomes a two-phase problem and new important effects occur, such as condensation due to the emergency core cooling injections of sub-cooled water. Thus, an advanced prediction of RPV thermal loading during these transients requires sophisticated two-phase, local scale, 3D codes. In that purpose, a program has been set up to extend the capabilities of the Neptune_CFD two-phase solver which is the tool able to solve two phase flow configuration. In a same time, A simplified approach has showed that for a type of transient weakly uncovered, a free surface calculation was sufficient to respect the necessary criteria of safety. A Qualification study was carried out on the Hybiscus experimental E.D.F facility, representing a cold leg with ECC injection and a third down comer. Temperature profiles have been compared and are presented and analysed here, showing encouraging results.


2014 ◽  
Vol 592-594 ◽  
pp. 1220-1224
Author(s):  
Navin Kumar ◽  
Surjit Angra ◽  
Vinod Kumar Mittal

Saddles are used to support the horizontal pressure vessels such as boiler drums or tanks. Since saddle is an integral part of the vessel, it should be designed in such a way that it can withstand the pressure vessel load while carrying liquid along with the operating weight. This paper presents the stress analysis of saddle support of a horizontal pressure vessel. A model of horizontal pressure vessel and saddle is created in Ansys software. For the given boundry and loading conditions, stresses induced in the saddle support are analyzed using Ansys software. After analysis it is found that maximum localized stress arises at the saddle to vessel interface near the saddle horn area. The results obtained shows that the saddle support design is safe for the given loading conditions and provides the theoretical basis for furthur optimisation.


Author(s):  
Q. Ma ◽  
C. Levy ◽  
M. Perl

Our previous studies have shown that stress intensity factors (SIFs) are influenced considerably from the presence of the Bauschinger Effect (BE) in thick-walled pressurized cracked cylinders. For some types of pressure vessels, such as gun barrels, working in corrosive environment, in addition to acute temperature gradients and repetitive high-pressure impulses, erosions can be practically induced. Those erosions cause stress concentration at the bore, where cracks can readily initiate and propagate. In this study, The BE on the SIFs will be investigated for a crack emanating from an erosion’s deepest point in a multiply eroded autofrettaged, pressurized thick-walled cylinder. A commercial finite element package, ANSYS, was employed to perform this type of analysis. A two-dimensional model, analogous to the authors’ previous studies, has been adopted for this new investigation. Autofrettage with and without BE, based on von Mises yield criterion, is simulated by thermal loading and the SIFs are determined by the nodal displacement method. The SIFs are evaluated for a variety of relative crack lengths, a0/t = 0.01–0.45 emanating from the tip of the erosion of different geometries including (a) semi-circular erosions of relative depths of 1–10 percent of the cylinder’s wall thickness, t; (b) arc erosions for several dimensionless radii of curvature, r′/t = 0.05–0.4; and (c) semi-elliptical erosions with ellipticities of d/h = 0.5–1.5, and erosion span angle, α, from 6 deg to 360 deg. The effective SIFs for relatively short cracks are found to be increased by the presence of the erosion and further increased due to the BE, which may result in a significant decrease in the vessel’s fatigue life. Deep cracks are found to be almost unaffected by the erosion, but are considerably affected by BE.


Author(s):  
K. Satyambabu ◽  
N. Ramachandran

Many important engineering applications such as nuclear reactors, ships, pipes and pressure vessels are shell-like structures made with weldments. For such a structure, a major problem is the development of residual stress and distortion due to welding. Residual stresses in weldments significantly affect stress corrosion cracking, hydrogen-induced cracking and fatigue strength in welded structures. As-welded components generally have certain amount of residual stresses caused by the application of intense heat or thermal loading at the weld joint, formed due to non-uniform cooling rates at different points in the weld metal and heat affected zones. Presence of residual stresses in a component is detrimental as they may lead to failure below the design stress value and also affect many important properties including the life of a welded component. Welding induced residual stresses can significantly increase the fracture driving force in a weldment and also contribute to brittle fracture. The thermal cycle imposed on any welded object causes thermal expansions and contractions which are not uniform. Quantitative measurement of residual stresses is essential to take remedial measures such as change in the welding technique, optimizing welding parameters (heat input, electrode diameter etc,), change in the weld groove design and post-weld heat treatment for minimizing the residual stresses. Residual stress measurements after post-weld treatment would also ensure the adequacy of stress relief treatment. To have an investigation into these aspects, residual stresses due to Manual Metal Arc Welding and Submerged Arc Welding were measured nondestructively with Ultrasonic technique. Residual stress distribution for Shielded Metal Arc Welding and Submerged Arc Welding were compared and the present studies emphasized, that Shielded Metal Arc Welding gave higher compressive stresses than Submerged Arc Welding. Further, to substantiate the studies, commercial finite element analysis software ANSYS 5.6 was used for modeling of manual metal arc welded joint. The results obtained by ANSYS were compared with those by Ultrasonic method.


1986 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Nguyen ◽  
F. Mistree

A design method has been developed to determine systematically the system variables that will best achieve multiple design objectives involving both cost and damage tolerance of horizontal vessel design. The method is computer based, and is particularly suited for designing pressure vessels using multiple (conflicting) objectives. The method has been tested and validated against a computer program used extensively in industry. Better results by the new design method are demonstrated through case studies. The results indicate a wide range of vessel dimensions to which the design method can be applied. In general, application of the method will increase the efficiency of the design of horizontal pressure vessels.


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