Oil flange redesign

Hello Engineers,

I am a senior about to graduate and last thing I need to do is finish my senior design project. Most of my group voted for a redesign of a weld neck flange so that is our project. Through solidworks simulations I found that lowering the hub length decreases the pressure experienced by the flange, therefore having a longer life. But I wanted to find an application for my final presentation, I wanted to know if anyone here has any ideas for a good application for my flange, or something else to bring to my presentation so we don't get torched alive by the faculty for having such a simple project. I would love to hear your ideas!!

Thank you.

"a redesign of a weld neck flange"

Is there a stated goal of the redesign?
Is this a specialized flange for use on a custom project?
Is the patient a commercial weld neck flange? If so they are built to Standards that make them dead reliable for rated service, and toleranced for interchangeability

The goal of the redesign is to “optimize” the flange, only thing we were able to optimize though is the stress it experiences on the hub by lowering the hub length.

This flange we designed isn’t a specific part on a custom project or any of the sort, it’s just a change to a general flange, finding the application for it is what we’re struggling with.

I doubt anyone would adopt changing the dimensions of standard WN flanges (ASME B16.5 and B16.47) and also just minor adjustments on the hub dimensions.

I highly doubt it as well but we have to make it work at this point, even if it’s a very specific application/scenario.

It seems that the best reason to redesign such a flange is to prevent substitution do to specific environmental exposure risks. I don't know that this is substantial enough to be considered a capstone project.

Interesting coincidence:

You can try to sell it as reducing the required length and weight of the flange/equipment - there could be some value in this in niche applications. Think of some applications where this could be useful and hope that your professor doesn't know better.

However, as noted by others, standardized flanges are strongly preferred, and it is unlikely that your short hub flange would ever be used. Getting a custom flange to pass code requirements and convincing customers and regulators to accept it is unlikely to succeed. There are already standardized compact flanges and clamp hubs that are likely preferable to your custom flange if something more compact than a regular flange is required.

One lesson here is to have clear requirements/goals when working on a design. If you simply try to "optimize" without understanding what you're trying to optimize or why, you waste a lot of time and effort.