PIPING ENGINEERING CELL

Process Equipment Design: Design Basics

PROF. A. S. MOHARIR
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

INTRODUCTION

The life cycle of any chemical process involves inputs from almost all disciplines of
engineering and science. The two main contributors are chemical engineering and mechanical
engineering. It is very difficult to say who should get more credit for making a chemical
process plant function, a chemical engineer or a mechanical engineer. It depends on which
side of the great divide you belong to. But the fact is that the success of any chemical process
technology is often given to a chemical engineer species for his great process invention and
process design. The mechanical engineer who converts his dream process or process dream
into reality is often forgotten if the process is successful. Any mishap, however, brings him
into focus and the enquiry into such unfortunate episodes unequivocally blames him for it.
After all, what fails in a commercial scale plant and causes a shut down or even accident in a
process plant is a small or big mechanical component of the plant. Chemical reaction does not
fail to occur nor does the vapor liquid equilibrium alter its course. The partisan treatment the
two contributor species get is all too noticeable but unavoidable.

One can look at any chemical process plant in two ways. One look, the outwardly
look, is at the structures such as vessels (reactors, boilers, columns, tanks, etc.), pipes, pipe
components (valves, elbows, expanders, reducers, etc.), machines (pumps, compressors,
agitators, turbines, etc.), supports (pipe supports, hangars, buildings, platforms, pipe racks
etc.), and facilities (weigh bridge, safety shower, etc.). What catches the eye here is the
mechanical and civil aspects of a chemical process plant. Another look is at the outwardly
invisible things and happenings. These include the reactions that take place in a reactor, coke
or fuel that burns in a boiler, vaporization that takes place in an evaporator or boiler, radiation
that heats in a furnace, pressure drop that takes place in a pipe, condensation that takes place
in a steam header, crystallization that takes place in a crystallizer, etc. Traditionally, chemical
engineers confine their attention to what happens inside the structures and other engineers
such as mechanical engineers, civil engineers worry about what happens to the structures.

Most of the operations listed above occur at temperatures and pressures which are
different from normal atmospheric conditions. These operations are often hazardous and do
put the surroundings at risk. The job of the mechanical and civil structures is to confine these
risky operations within vessels and pipes, act as boundaries between these risky but necessary
operations and the outer world. While protecting the outer world from risk, these structures
suffer stresses and strains themselves. They have their own limitations dictated by their
material of construction, method of design and construction/fabrication, schedule of
maintenance and their physical age. Any flaw or shortcoming in any of these aspects would
mean that these structures would be unable to do their protector’s role perfectly and mishaps
would occur.

Mechanical engineering and civil engineering designers have to make sure that the
structures would guarantee reasonable safety for a reasonable period of time and not fail in
spite of continuous or intermittent harsh conditions faced by their designed structures.

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In this paper, we will focus on the important aspects of safe mechanical design of
process plant structures, especially equipment.

INFORMATION NECESSARY FOR MECHANICAL DESIGN

Mechanical design of equipment and auxiliaries, which together comprise a process

plant, follows the process design stage. At this stage, a PFD (Process Flow Diagram) is
available. For each major equipment, information such as its capacity, operating temperature
and pressure, chemical composition of its contents during operation etc. are available.
Similarly for every pipe connection between vessels or machinery (pumps etc.), the flow rate,
temperature, pressure and composition are known. A mechanical engineer has now to take
important design decisions, which would ensure that his design of equipment and associated
piping would not fail.

Failure of a structural part is said to occur when stresses, strains or a certain function
of stresses and/or strains in the structure reach a critical point. Any design has to guard
against this perceived failure.

The designer must know two things at this stage.

a. How the stresses and strains in his envisaged structure can be calculated from applied
load, and
b. What is the critical combination of stresses and strains at which failure would occur.

The answer to the first (a) lies in the broad domain of applied mechanics and to the
second (b) in the domain of physics of solid. The minimum essentials from these areas
required to appreciate various design procedures are covered here in brief.

WHAT IS A FAILURE?

Failure of a structural part can occur by:

. excessive elastic deformation,
. excessive non-elastic deformation, or
. fracture

Mechanical design of any structure or its component must guard against ‘excessive’
deformation under extreme conditions that the structure may face during its operation cycle.
The extreme conditions may occur during normal operation, start up or testing etc.

Moderate deformation (elastic or non-elastic) may be beneficial in that they can

reshape the structure reversibly or irreversibly so as to redistribute the stresses in a structural
part and prevent their rise anywhere in the structure to levels at which failure can occur.
Moderate deformations can thus give desirable flexibility to any system.

While deformation may be beneficial in most cases, in some cases, it may lead to
change in the shape of the body that causes an increase in the stresses for the same applied
load. This increase in stresses may increase the deformation further, which leads to further
increase in stresses and so on. This may continue till fracture or rupture takes place. Elastic

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buckling or plastic unhindered extension of a rod or wire during the course of which its cross-
section diminishes and the stresses for an applied load increase is the simplest example.
Specimen tests for determination of material properties such as modulus of elasticity,
ultimate tensile stress or strength, fatigue behavior under cyclic load etc. tests the material
behavior till such ultimate failure occurs. Some of these properties are crucial design inputs.

SPECIMEN TEST AND IMPORTANT MATERIAL PROPERTIES FOR DESIGN

Mechanical properties of any material of construction are dependent on their chemical

composition as well as method of manufacture. The choice of Material of Construction
(MoC) for a given service (fluid to be handled, pressure, temperature etc.) depends on both
the chemistry and physics of the MoC.

The chemistry decides the material’s interaction with the fluid that it is expected to
handle. A suitable material which would not be chemically reactive with the fluid and hence
will not be corroded itself and/or contaminate the contents with corrosion products, which is
hard enough to withstand the erosive, abrasive action of the fluid/solid that is being handled,
etc. is important to choose. Choice of material of construction from this point of view
requires expertise and knowledge of metallurgy and chemistry. Broad guidelines for choice
of MoC have emerged. These are, however, outside the scope of the present topic.

Another important aspect is that the material so chosen be adequately strong so that
any structure, which is made out of it, can withstand process conditions for reasonable
amount of time. Some basic concepts from strength of material are involved here and are
briefly discussed to prepare the background for design.

Most materials of construction used in the process industry are metallic in nature.
Pure metals or alloys of various compositions are used for given service. While the first
choice is dictated by the chemistry between the MoC and the process fluid, the ultimate
choice from among various options, which satisfy chemistry considerations, is on the physics
of the MoC. The important properties used in design are temperature dependent and are
experimentally determined using a specimen test. The results of such tests in terms of
properties of various Materials of Construction at different temperatures are then compiled as
materials standards. Each country has its own standards institution and may also follow
several international standards.

A schematic of a typical specimen test apparatus is as shown in Fig. 1.

A specimen piece of a MoC is held firm between the jaws of the test machine and can be
subjected to tensile load by pulling the jaws apart with a known force or a compressive load
by pushing them closer with known force. The specimen can also be subjected to a cycle of
tensile load and compressive load with known amplitude and frequency. Material behavior
can be studied under such applied loads and its properties derived.

The two important parameters which quantify the behavior of a specimen are the strain and
the stress. For tensile load, the strain is simply the ratio of increase in length of the specimen
under constant sustained load to the original length of the specimen before the load is applied.
For compressive load, it is similarly the ratio of decrease in length to the original length
under sustained load. Strain is thus an observable and measurable quantity as the extension or

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compression of the specimen can be directly measured. Strain is also a dimensionless

quantity.

Stress is defined as the applied load per unit cross-section of the specimen. Unlike strain, it is
dimensional. The common units for stress are psi (pounds per square inch), kPa, MPa, kg. per
square cm. etc. depending on the system of units used for force and linear dimension.

When there is no load, there are no stresses and no strain. When a small tensile load is
applied, the strain can be measured and stress derived. If the load is removed, the specimen
returns to its original shape. That is, there is no residual or permanent strain in the specimen.
This situation continues up to a certain level of stress. A stress-strain curve in this region is
also a straight line (Fig. 2), i.e. stress is proportional to strain.

Fig. 1: Typical Specimen Test Apparatus

Most metals and alloys exhibit this behavior. This region of the curve is called the
elastic region, as the MoC’s behavior is elastic like a rubber band. As the tensile load during
the test is increased further, a situation arises when the specimen does not return to its
original dimension even when the load is withdrawn. This is also the load level (or stress
level) at which the stress strain curve begins to deviate from the elastic straight-line behavior
as shown in Fig. 2. We say that the metal is undergoing plastic deformation in addition to
elastic deformation. When the load is withdrawn, elastic deformation is recovered but the
plastic deformation stays.

Most metals exhibit an erratic and uncertain stress-strain pattern as the load increases
further. The circled region in Fig. 2 shows this. The highest stress that the metal can
withstand under sustained load without continuing to elongate under same load is called the
upper yield point. There is also a cluster of lower stress values at which there is accelerated
strain. The lowest stress values among these are called a lower yield point (Fig. 2).
If the specimen test is carried out with different specimen cut out from, say, the same
piece of rod, each may show different location of upper yield point. All such specimen of
same MoC would, however, exhibit same lower yield point. The upper yield point depends
upon the chemistry of the MoC but also upon the way the molten metal was frozen in a rod or
plate mill at manufacturing stage. During this sudden quenching of molten metal, crystals and
crystal aggregates get interlocked in awkward position and they get to readjust themselves
only during stress tests and when plastic deformation begins beyond the elastic deformation
range. This relaxation is reflected in the location of yield point. As different portions of the
same rod or plate would have cooled down and frozen differently under cooling during

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manufacturing, location of upper yield point cannot be said to be a reliable property of MoC
but is obliterated by the manufacturing process as well. The lower yield point is however a
material property and depends more strongly on chemistry. The lower yield point is what is
used as a reliable yield stress value for design purposes.

Beyond the yield point, the specimen would continue to deform under the same
applied load. The strain thus increases. As it happens, the specimen cross-section decreases,
same load would then mean higher stresses causing higher strains etc., as discussed earlier.
Plastic instability is said to have set in.

Similar tests are carried out at different temperatures. As temperature of test increases,
specimen of same material would elongate more for same load as compared to a specimen
tested at lower temperature. It would also yield at lower stress value. The material thus
becomes softer, so to say, as it is subjected to higher and higher temperatures. This sets the
upper limit on the temperature for any engineering material of construction. The stress strain
curves at different temperatures for same MoC would look qualitatively as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 2: Typical Stress Strain Curve

Stress

Increasing Temperature

Strain

Fig. 3: Stress Strain Curves at Different Temperatures

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Stress-strain curves are different for different materials and at different temperatures
for the same material. Rather than compiling the curves, specific parameters are derived from
the curve and temperature dependent properties of the MoC are reported in materials
standards. Some of these important properties are as follows.

Modulus of Elasticity:

Also called Young’s modulus, it is simply the slope of the straight line representing
the elastic line in the stress strain curve. It has the units of stress (as strain is dimensionless).
It is an important property and is often used to convert measured strain in a structural element
to corresponding stress value if the structural element were to produce that much deformation
while still in elastic region. For example, consider Fig. 4.

C
Stress
B

A
Strain

Fig. 4: Code Stresses

Presume that a certain load has caused a strain in an element corresponding to point A
on the strain co-ordinate. The actual stress would be corresponding to point B on the stress
co-ordinate. However, often in calculation, the stress would be reported as at point C on the
stress co-ordinate. Point C is the stress corresponding to the intersection of elastic line with
the vertical line corresponding to the strain value at point A.

This method of reporting stresses often causes confusion. For example, how can one
have a stress value (corresponding to point C in Fig. 4), which is larger than the ultimate
tensile stress? The structural element should have disintegrated much before reaching that
level of stress. The confusion can be avoided if one remembers that this is only a convention
followed while doing stress calculations and gives, in a way, an hypothetical stress value.
One must remember that stresses, unlike strains, can neither be observed nor measured. They
are simply derived quantities. Such back calculated stress values are often called ‘code
stresses’ as they are calculated using strain value and the modulus of elasticity reported in
codes.

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Yield Stress & Ultimate Tensile Strength:

UTS or Ultimate Tensile Strength or Ultimate Tensile Stress is that value of stress
beyond which plastic instability sets in as discussed earlier. Obviously, design should be such
that this level of stresses is not reached during the life of any structural element. The lower
Yield Point discussed earlier is also called Yield Stress.

Allowable Stress:

Yield Stress is used to decide the allowable stress for any MoC at any temperature by
incorporating a suitable safety factor. Allowable stress can also be defined as the UTS
divided by a safety factor. The safety factor is obviously greater than 1. Designs which ensure
that the stress value anywhere in the structure is less than this allowable stress are considered
safe designs as they do not allow the structural element to come anywhere close to the point
where plastic instability leading to disruption or disintegration of the element would set in.
Allowable stress decreases with temperature and an appropriate value applicable for the
design temperature should be obtained from the codes. Most often, allowable stress value
applicable at design temperature (also called design stress) is directly available from the
standards. If not, other available material properties and recommended safety factors should
be used to arrive at allowable stress value. For example, if yield stress or 0.2% proof stress
value is available at design temperature, the same should be divided by a safety factor of 1.5
to get allowable stress, if yield stress is not available at design temperature but is available at
room temperature, the same should be divided by a higher safety factor (say 3.0 or 4.0) to get
allowable stress. If stress value for rupture due to static fatigue or creep failure is available at
design temperature, a safety factor of 1.5 may be used to get allowable stress. These safety
factors are recommended for carbon steel and low alloy steels.

Choice of design temperature is crucial to get the allowable stress. Knowledge of the
process is very important here. The knowledge should be not only about the normal
operation, but also about start up procedures. How the structure part attains that temperature
is also important. Some of the commonly used guidelines are as follows. For parts of a
structure, which are not heated directly but attain temperature because they are in contact
with the stored or contained material, highest expected temperature of the stored material
should be the design temperature. For structural parts, which are heated (say by steam,
thermic fluid etc.), highest expected temperature of the heating media or highest expected
body part temperature plus 10°C should be the design temperature. Here, 10°C is the safety
margin. For fired vessels, parts which are shielded (say by refractory lining), safety margin is
20°C and for unshielded parts, the safety margin is 50°C. These are only guidelines. What is
the highest expected temperature due to unexpected and unintended happenings (such as
coolant flow interruption due to control valve closing shut etc.) is for the designer to
visualize. What should be the safety margin would depend upon the severity of operation.

Proof Stress:

Also called 0.2% proof stress, it is the stress for 0.2 % strain. In simpler terms, it is
the stress value for strain value of 0.002 on the stress strain curve. Two variations of the

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definition are also in use. In one, it is defined as code stress for 0.2% strain. In another, it is
the stress value obtained from the intersection with the actual stress strain curve of a line
drawn parallel to the elastic line from the point representing 0.2% strain on the strain co-
ordinate. See Fig. 5 for explanation of these various definitions. The last definition said to
have been adopted by several international codes.

Fig. 5: Proof Stress Definitions

An important point about the proof stress is that it can be altered by preceding plastic
deformation or ‘cold work’. It can be explained with the help of Fig. 6.

Fig.6: Increase in Proof Stress due to Cold Work

Consider a stress strain curve as shown in Fig. 6. Let a fresh specimen be subjected to
gradually increasing tensile loads. A 0.2% proof stress can be marked on curve as the stress
value corresponding to point C on the curve. Let the load be increased beyond this point up to
point D on the curve. The specimen has surely passed the elastic range and crossed over to
plastic deformation. On withdrawal of the load, the specimen would return back to point E
with a residual permanent strain as shown. Tensile load test can now be conducted on this
specimen, which has seen plastic deformation or ‘cold work’ previously. The specimen

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would now follow a stress strain curve with strain zero at point E. Along this stress strain
curve (EGF), 0.2 % proof stress is corresponding to point G and is higher than the proof
stress for the fresh specimen. The material seems to have hardened with its experience of
stress earlier. Most materials show this marginal increase in their proof stress due to cold
work.

Major international standards institutions study materials from all angles and compile
data from these extensive/expensive experiments. Most of this data is for solid specimen.
These indicators of material behavior obtained from studies on solid specimen are often used
to design failsafe vessels such as cylinders and spheres. But these are hollow structures. What
is important to note is that failure may occur in such shapes at lower stress values than
applicable for solids of same MoC. For example, pressure inside a sealed cylinder can be
used as a way of applying load. Pressure, cylinder dimension and wall thickness can be used
to calculate stresses in the metal walls. Pressure can be gradually increased till the cylinder
bursts. The bursting pressure may be converted to stresses in walls at that pressure. These
stress values at failure have been found to be lower than the yield stresses for solid specimen
of same material at same temperature. Geometry thus plays a role in failure apart from
temperature and chemistry and physics of solids.

A typical sequence of stress values at failure for solid rods and two most important
shapes in process industry, namely, sphere and cylinder is rod > sphere > cylinder. This is
taken care of by the design formulae for various shapes in some way as will be seen later.

For application at sub-ambient temperatures, more than the above properties,

brittleness, hardness etc. become important. These are also quantified and reported by the
standards institutes. Their discussion is outside the scope of this paper.

As pointed out earlier, calculation of stresses from applied load is simple for simple
shapes such as uniform cross-section solid rods. For more important shapes such as hollow
sphere or cylinder, the load is often in terms of pressure exerted by the fluid contained in the
vessel and this has to be related to induced stresses in the vessel walls. This is the area of
applied mechanics and is the subject matter of the next section.

RELATION OF STRESS TO APPLIED LOAD

Process vessels involve several regular shapes. For example, a reactor may have a
cylindrical body, an elliptical closure at the top and a conical bottom. A riser in a FCCU
(Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit) may have a larger diameter cylindrical body at the top
connected to a smaller diameter cylindrical body at the bottom with a frustum of appropriate
cone joining them and a dished (torispherical) closure at top and hemispherical closure at the
bottom etc. Pipes transporting process streams from one vessel to another are cylindrical
entities. More commonly encountered geometrical shapes in a process plant are thus: sphere
or hemisphere, cylinder, cone or a frustum of a cone, ellipsoid and torus. Design of such body
shapes implies decision regarding their wall thickness for given inner or outer overall
dimensions which will ensure that under the worst pressure and temperature conditions, these
shapes do not develop stresses which would cross the allowable stress limits. For each shape,
the codes give simple calculation formulae which are often used without much thought to the
roots of such formulae. These formulae are rooted in applied mechanics, safety
considerations, fabrication considerations etc. It is proposed to offer here a general applied

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mechanics approach to the development of relation between stress and applied load, basic
formulae for simple shapes to calculate safe thickness for given service and then compare
such design formulae to the code procedures for design. This would throw light on how
rigorous theory can lead through practical considerations to simple practically applicable
design procedures.

In this chapter, we will try and get design formulae for two important shapes: sphere
and cylinder. We will use very basic, school level knowledge that we have about forces.
Importantly, we will apply the most important law of nature “A body continues to be at rest
or of uniform motion unless acted upon by a force”. This is of course the Newton’s second
law of motion.

To begin with, consider a spherical vessel. Let its ID (Inner Diameter) be DI, its wall
thickness be t (therefore, its Outer Diameter, DO, will be DI + 2t) subjected to an inside
pressure Pi. The vessel will always be subjected to atmospheric pressure from outside unless
it is submerged in another fluid, or enclosed in another vessel etc. The wall of the vessel will
thus experience a net pressure of (Pi – Patm). But this is how we define gauge pressure. Let us
call this net pressure experienced by the vessel wall subjected to internal pressure as P.

Now imagine this spherical vessel be cut into two halves by a horizontal plane. Take a
free body diagram and force balance on one of the halves. For example, the top half will
experience a force in the vertical direction due the pressure inside. It will be P.π.DI2/4. If this
is the only force acting on the hemispherical top half, it should then begin to move as per the
Newton’s law. The fact that the sphere continues to be a whole shows that there is no net
force acting on the top or even bottom half. This should lead us to search for another force
that is acting on the top half which is exactly equal and opposite in direction to the vertically
upward pressure force.

This acts along the edge of the cut sphere. The metal grains along this metal cross-
section of the top half are being pulled down all along by a force. If this force per unit area is
SV say, the net induced force is π.D.t.SV.

The force balance thus says that SV = π.D.t/4. SV, the force per unit area on the
horizontal circular edge across the wall thickness t is nothing but the induced stress in vertical
direction which is keeping the top half glued to the bottom half. It is tensile in nature for net
internal pressure and compressive for net external pressure.

One could now take a similar section of the sphere by a vertical plane dividing it into
two halves. Similar logic would say that the stress in the horizontal direction is also of same
magnitude. This was expected because sphere is a completely symmetrical shape and should
make no distinction between vertical and horizontal.

We thus got two stresses in the metal wall perpendicular to each other. Any crystal or
grain of the material will however experience a three dimensional stress as we are
considering three dimensional objects. The third direction in which we should be interested is
normal to both the above directions so that we have an orthogonal coordinate system of
directions. This is nothing but the radial direction, piercing through the wall of the sphere.

What is the stress in this third direction of interest? Think a little and relate this radial
stress to known geometrical parameters and pressure as we did earlier for S1 (or SV) and S2.

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We will then know the three stresses at any location in a sphere as follows.

PD I
S1 =
4t
PD I
S2 =
4t
S3 = ?

Let us repeat this procedure for a cylindrical shape of given diameter, thickness and
net pressure. For a vertical cylinder, take a horizontal section, and then a vertical section
cutting the cylinder into two halves. Take force balance. The induced stresses in the vertical
(axial) direction and horizontal (circumferencial) direction will be as follows. The third
orthogonal stress in the radial direction can also be found.

PD I
S1 =
4t
PD I
S2 =
2t
S3 = ?

We have earlier discussed the concept of allowable stress. It is arrived at after considering a
safety factor on the yield stress. If none of the three stresses in the vessel shape crosses the
threshold of allowable stress (Sa), the thickness of the vessel can be said to be adequate. So,
we stipulate that neither S1, nor S2, nor S3 should cross Sa. This can be achieved by
reorganizing the stress formulae derived above and writing them to express thickness as a
function of vessel dimension, pressure and allowable stress.

At this stage, let us presume that S3 is less than either S1 or S2 for both the shapes. Then, the
thickness formula can be arrived at by saying that the greater of the two stresses (S1 and S2)
should be less than the allowable stress.

This will provide us the thickness calculation formulae for sphere and cylinder as follows.

P DI
Sphere: t≥
4 Sa
P DI
Cylinder: t≥
2 Sa

We thus have some formulae to design some shapes. These were arrived at by simple force
balance. As mechanical designers, one uses formulae recommended by applicable codes. The
codes serve as inviolable regulations. The thickness calculated by those formulae can be
called as regulation thickness of the proposed pressure vessel. These formulae are not exactly
the same as above. At the same time, they cannot be entirely different because the theory we
applied also made sense. We will compare the formulae given by codes and the one we got
above. The comparison will throw light on the practicality of codes and role of science in
practical engineering.

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Before that, let us see if we can get a theoretical calculation formula based on outer diameter
instead of on inner diameter. This can be done by realizing that OD is equal to ID + twice the
thickness. By simple manipulation and rearrangement, the above formulae can be
equivalently written in terms of OD as follows.

P DO
Sphere: t≥
4 [S a + 0.5P]
P DO
Cylinder: t≥
2 [S a + P]

Codes offer formulae based on OD as well as ID for all shapes important in fabricated
process equipments. Formulae for regulation thickness for cylinder and sphere are compiled
in Table 2.1 below along with formula which can be derived from force balance as above.
Code formulae are also given for other important shapes.

A closer look at the formula suggested by theory and the corresponding formula
recommended by the codes for each shape will show that they differ only in the structure of
their denominator. A closer look will show that the codes effectively modify the allowable
stress term in the denominator to a further lower value. The net effect is that the thickness is
pushed up and more safety is included in design. One could consider this adjusted value of
allowable stress as additional tolerance included value to account for imperfections in
welding and also for the shape being designed. Codes thus make the design safer and
accounts for skill related factors such as welding.

Also note that the shape related reduction in denominator is of different degree for different
shapes. One can check that it is more for cylinder than for sphere. The reason for this is in
one of the shape related considerations discussed earlier.

While applying these formulae in design, one must remember few things. The units for
thickness and vessel dimension (diameter, radius etc.) should be same. Similarly, the pressure
and the allowable stress must be in same units (psi, ksi, Pa, kPA, MPa etc.). The weld joint
efficiency (E) and the shape factor are dimensionless.

For the conical shape, the thickness is decided by the base diameter. Similarly, for dished
end, the value of M is dependent on the ratio of crown radius to knuckle radius. Codes
provide a table of the values recommended.

The weld joint efficiency will depend on the procedure to be adopted for weld quality
inspection. By using appropriate value for the weld joint efficiency, one is thus committed to
a weld quality inspection regime. The shape factor (called Y factor in case of pipes) is a
function of temperature as well as type of steel (austenitic, martensitic etc.) The applicable
values should be taken from appropriate table from the codes.

The above thickness will be code compliant for a freshly fabricated vessel. However, we
design the vessel for a certain life expectancy, often 20 years for process plant. The thickness
will reduce with passing years if corrosion due to process fluid in the vessel eats into the wall
from inside. To ensure that regulation thickness is available on the last day of service of the

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vessel, we add to the regulation thickness the estimated thickness that will be lost to corrosion
over the design life of the vessel. This is called corrosion allowance.

The corrosion provided thickness is thus the regulation thickness plus the corrosion
allowance. If a plate of this thickness is available, it will do the job. However, plates come in
only certain thicknesses given in dimensional standards. The plates made in the steel mills
also may not be uniformly thick. While ordering the plate, some manufacturing tolerance is
built into the ordered thickness so that even if the thickness is less somewhere by this
stipulated margin, the actual thickness is still not less than corrosion provided thickness.

This negative mill tolerance is often a percentage of the nominal thicknesses. For example,
one may say that mill tolerance is 1 in 8 or 12.5%. That means, the available thickness could
be as low as 7/8 or 87.5% of the nominal thickness. If it is so, then the above calculated
corrosion provided thickness should be jacked up by dividing it by 7/8 (i.e. 1 – 1/8).
Equivalently, the corrosion provided thickness is multiplied by 8/7. The supplied plate will
then ensure that corrosion provided thickness requirement is met by the plate even at its
thinnest portion. At other locations, it will be more than required, which is fine.

The desired minimum thickness of the vessel wall is thus (t + C)/(1-%M/100). Check this and
appreciate it.

This exact thickness may not be available as nominal thickness in the dimensional standards.
One then recommends the next available thickness on the higher side. This then incorporates
some extra thickness in the design. The vessel as fabricated will be able to hold a pressure
higher than the design pressure. This should allow for operation of the vessel at a pressure
higher than the intended design pressure.

The designer needs to back-calculate this pressure called as Maximum Allowable Working
Pressure (MAWP). It is calculated by using the above steps in reverse. The thickness that will
be available after deducting the mill tolerance and corrosion allowance is put in the above
design formulae to back out the pressure value.

The code compliant formulae to get pressure from thickness are derivable and also available
in codes.

MAWP is then used to calculate the hydrostatic pressure at which the fabricated vessel be
tested prior to commissioning by keeping it pressurized with water. Water is called the test
fluid and the test is at ambient temperature.

Appreciate the practicality behind the following formula for hydrotest pressure.

Hydrotest pressure = 1.5 MAWP (Sa at test temperature/Sa at design Temperature)

Hydrotest is at a pressure much higher than the design pressure. Most engineers accept
hydrotest pressure as 1.5 times the design pressure. If the temperature correction in the
formula is incorporated, it is even more. Why does one take a vessel to pressure not likely to
be reached in operation? Why does one want to go to the edge and actually encourage the
vessel to fail the test? What is this death wish? Mull over these questions and you would
appreciate the beauty of design codes and their commitment to public safety. Codes give
paramount importance to HSE. That is their primary objective.

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PIPING ENGINEERING CELL

Table 1: SOME DESIGN FORMULAE

Theory Code
Based Based on OD Based on ID Based on OD
on ID
Sphere P DI P DO P DI P DO
4 Sa 4[Sa + 0.5P] 4[Sa E − 0.1P] 4[ Sa E + 0.4P]
Cylinder P DI P DO P DI P DO
2 Sa 2[Sa + P] 2[Sa E − 0.6P] 2[Sa E + 0.4P]
Cone P DI P DO
2 cosα [Sa E − 0.6P] 2 cosα [Sa E + 0.4P]
Ellipsoid P DI P DO
2[Sa E − 0.1P] 2[Sa E + 0.9P]
Dish PR Crown
I M PR Crown
O M
2[Sa E − 0.1P] 2[Sa E + 0.5P(M - 0.2)]

DI - inner dimension
DO - outer dimension
E - weld joint efficiency
M - factor based on ratio of crown radius to knuckle radius (See table below)
α - half angle of cone
Sa - allowable stress
P - design pressure

Note: It may be noted that in the above design formulae, P and Sa should be in the
same units (say psi for both or MPa for both). Also, the thickness t will be in same
units as used for DI or DO.

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