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Piping Vibration Level Guidelines
2

Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

(OP)
Does anyone know of some quantitative guidelines on acceptable levels of piping vibration? We have a major problem with one of our turbine steam leads which we are attempting to solve with the use of dampers, but how do I know what is an acceptable level of vibration, and what is unacceptable?

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

Hello,

Start by going here and looking around the discussion boards.

http://www.pumpline.com/index.htm

Regards, John.

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

For piping, try ASME OM-S/G-1990, Part 3 "Requirements for Preoperational and Initial Start-up Vibration Testing of Nuclear Power Plant Piping Systems" It is not a "code", but a non-mandatory guide. The general approaches should be useful for any plant.

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

seanmc,

I do not think you will find any definitive industry guideline for acceptable levels of steam piping vibration.

As a consulting piping engineer, I was asked this question several times and the only references that I could find were the old ASME OM-S/G 1990 guidline as well as a table in the old "Shock & Vibration Handbook".

It is important to understand if this vibration is continuous or transient in nature and if it is associated with operation of a control valve. It may be possible to add (relativly) cheaper rigid pipe restraints to your system rather than the expensive, and high maintenance dampers.....

Any suggestions John Breen ???

MJC

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

Stress packages such as Algor's Pipepak enable you to model the system including modal analysis. If the excitation is caused by the turbine one could then model the location of supports such that the harmonics are not in tune with the forcing frequency. The problem may be solved by the use of spring hangars , rigid or other supports.

It is of concern that the vibration is occurring at all unless it is fluid generated.

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

(OP)
Thanks for all the advice, I am following up on the resources suggested.
The vibration is continuous in nature, but only at low loads. The source of excitation is believed to be the control valve which is upstream of the problem area. Some modelling has already been done and additional spring/ oil snubbers added, without solving the problem.
Gerb dampers have been added to the system and we will take readings to test their effectiveness on commissioning.
Any further comments would be appreciated.

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

Try ISA codes involving design and specs of control valves. Vibration and noise in such elements couild thread pipe integrity. Right I've got a couple of projects due to excesive vibration and noise in piping systems.

Verufy SPL (Sound Power Levels) and feed your stress analysis software with frecuncies result of valve noise. That would give you some good results.

Theres is in market and aviable a software called BOSS fluid. I've never used it...but I've some good references of it.

Bye.

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

Hello All,

I am sorry it took me so long to get back to this question but I was looking in my "archive" (basement, complete with spiders) to find a paper that was written by Walter W. Von Nimitz a bunch of years ago.  The paper has a chart that plots amplitude against frequency and it has curves for "danger", "correction", "marginal", "design", and "average threshold of perception".  I found the paper but it is just barely readable.

So, instead I did a little research and I came up with a bunch of very good papers that are available at this address:

http://www.engdyn.com/papers.htm

I think the paper that you will be most interested in is #72 but here are some of the other papers that are available (in PDF format so you will need Acrobat):



17. Escape Piping Vibrations While Designing, J. C. Wachel/C. L. Bates, Hydrocarbon Processing, October, 1976, pp. 152-166.

20. Field Investigation of Piping Systems for Vibration-Induced Stress and Failures, J. C. Wachel, Pressure Vessel and Piping Conference, ASME Bound Volume #H00219, June 27-July 2, 1982.

27. Piping Vibration and Stress, J. C. Wachel, Vibration Institute, Machinery Vibration Monitoring and Analysis Seminar, New Orleans, April 1981, pp. 1-20.

29. Pulsations in Centrifugal Pump and Piping Systems, C. R. Sparks and J. C. Wachel, Hydrocarbon Processing, July 1977, pp. 183-189.

37. Techniques for Controlling Piping Vibration and Failures, J. C. Wachel/C. L. Bates, ASME Paper 76-PET-18, 1976.

59. Vibration Troubleshooting of Existing Piping Systems, J. C. Wachel/D. R. Smith, July 1991.

72. Displacement Method for Determining Acceptable Piping Vibration Amplitudes, J. C. Wachel, 1995 ASME/JSME Pressure Vessels & Piping Conference, Honolulu, HI, July 1995.

Best regards, John.

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

Hello

OOOPS! I see that Stanier got there first.  

Thanks Stanier

Regards, John

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

JOHN - OUTSTANDING LINK!  I'd give you a star but you're not logged in.

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

Thanks Stanier, you get a star also.

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

(OP)
Great! Thanks again.

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

you can find interesting papers that can be downloaded in www.egdyn.com/manualspage.htm

you can perform a dynamic analysis with a program as AUTOPIPE or CEASAR'S, and to change the natural frecuencies of rhe pipe , by adding or relocatings supports.If this es not enough, you can try with hydraulic snubbers ( Lisega or Grinnell ) or voscoelastic dampers ( GERB)

 

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

John Breen
I am very interested in your link however I have no luck with access???

Dave1
http://www.engdyn.com/papers.htm

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

the link for EDI's technical papers has been changed to: http://www.engdyn.com/papers_table.htm

i have personally worked with EDI on a few of my company's projects & have found their work to be quite good.  their staff is extremely knowledgeable eps concnering pipeline vibration & pulsation.  u might wanna give them a call and ask their thoughts as well.

hth,
kahlil

RE: Piping Vibration Level Guidelines

the link for EDI's technical papers has been changed to: http://www.engdyn.com/papers_table.htm

i have personally worked with EDI on a few of my company's projects & have found their work to be quite good.  their staff is extremely knowledgeable esp concerning pipeline vibration & pulsation.  u might wanna give them a call and ask their thoughts as well.

hth,
kahlil

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