Optimal Design of Three-way Joint Structure for Steam Pipeline of Offshore Floating Nuclear Power Plant

Offshore nuclear power plants have many advantages, but their small space determines that operators cannot work far away from the steam power generation system. In order to improve work comfort and reduce noise damage, this article has carried out optimization design work for the three-way joint of the steam pipeline. On the basis of the female model, a smooth numerical simulation of the three-way joint is carried out to show its internal flow field. On this basis, with the uniform optimization design method, the best branch rounding radius of the confluence tee joint and the branch tee joint were obtained respectively.

Stress Calculations Adopted Finite Element Method of Pressure Steam Pipeline Containing Defects

The stress behavior of defects is the key factor in the safety assessment of pressure steam pipeline containing defects. For achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, high-parameter pressure steam pipelines are widely designed in the recent years. It makes the safety assessment based on defect stresses become significantly important. A combined FEA method of stress calculations was proposed in the present study for calculating film stress and bend stress of defects located in a pressure steam pipeline from a certain power plant. An efficient program code with graphical user interface was designed to automatically generate FEA models of defect part pipelines. It is truly an innovative highlight of the present work attributed to convenient operation and outstanding efficiency. This paper provides an available way to obtain the stress state of defects in the safety assessment of pressure steam pipeline containing defects.

The investigation of the effect of atmospheric conditions on the tempreture drop across heat treatment systems

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effect of atmospheric conditions on the temperature drop across heat treatment systems (piping and vessels). Due to the economy and power energy consumption, it has become necessary for Isegen SA (Pty) Ltd to conduct a numerical analysis on heat transfer since they are unable to predict and quantify heat energy losses in the steam reticulation systems. These losses occur due to the fact that there is no proper methodology to effectively predict heat energy losses in heating processes. When a steam pipeline is at a higher temperature than the air surrounding it, heat will pass through the wall of the pipeline from the steam to the surrounding air. This heat loss may cause the temperature of the steam to fall and the boiler efficiency decreases because the boiler requires more gas to maintain the plant steam required. Steam savings are very vital for Isegen SA (Pty) Ltd as most of the heating systems that they utilize are a direct steam injection. This means a large quantity of the sensible heat energy of the steam distributed into the factory is not recovered. Therefore, a numerical analysis was developed in order to investigate heat energy losses and steam consumption, while flowing through the insulated steam pipeline depending on the ambient and operational temperatures. The study proved that there is a heat energy loss as well as a temperature loss during the steam transportation through the insulated steam pipeline after conducting the numerical analysis. The thickness conduction resistance was obtained for thermal insulation complying with the required standards. The methodology involved the use of application of Excel spreadsheet to develop a theoretical model of the problem. The obtained model allowed us to get the required solution of the problem and calculate the heat loss for different thicknesses of the pipe’s insulation. The application of Excel spreadsheet steady state thermal method was used for obtaining the value of heat loss of steam at a critical thickness of insulation. After conducting the cost analysis, it has been found that Isegen SA (Pty) Ltd could save between one to two million Rands per year in fuel. The cost analysis conducted is based on the steam cost and heat energy losses. This study showed that steam waste is costly in both an environmental and financial sense. Therefore, this required prompt attention in order to ensure that the steam system is working at its optimum efficiency with minimal impact on the environment. This study was acknowledged by the Isegen SA (Pty) Ltd management, and a new technological process is to be implemented (see Appendix R for the relevant documents).