Team Members:
Additional Technical detail information
Regards to NozzlePro PRG Software: Saddle Wizard, High Temp/Creep, API 579 FFS, API 661, Piping Runs
What is NozzlePRO?
NozzlePRO is a component analysis tool for piping and pressure vessels. The tool brings the accuracy of the finite element method to the engineering community for general design and analysis. NozzlePRO is based on the technology offered in FE/Pipe with a user interface that simplifies input and allows engineers to quickly analyze piping and pressure components with a high degree of accuracy.
NozzlePRO technology is a significant improvement over the limitations inherent in WRC 107/297 methods. WRC methods are accurate across a small subset of ranges found in industrial applications. Since NozzlePRO is based on the finite element method, there are application constraints based on geometry.
Evaluate nozzles, saddles, pipe shoes and clips on shell or heads. Modeled head types include...
Conical
Dished
Elliptical
Spherical
Inputs include thermal, weight, operating, occasional, pressure, wind and earthquake loads as well as material and nozzle orientation. NozzlePRO includes the Saddle Wizard and has interfaces with MatPRO, COMPRESS, and Microprotol.
What are key NozzlePRO features?
Automated nozzle calculations: allowable loads, flexibility factors, stress intensification factors
Automatic fatigue calculations for piping and pressure vessel codes
Extend use of piping programs beyond B31 flexibility and SIF limits on D/T (B31.3, Appendix D)
Fatigue analysis includes a calculation for maximum allowed cycles and includes fatigue analysis according to BS5500, EN13445, ASME and WRC 474.
Improve beam analysis in piping programs using flexibility factors (WRC 329)
Interface with MatPRO allows comprehensive ASME material property lookup
Nozzle reinforcements: barrel and pad reinforced
Rich DirectX graphics show animated models for each load case and code stress category
Saddle wizard with pipe shoe options for repads, fluid head, tapered saddles, and user controlled boundary conditions
State and transient heat transfer analysis of selected head models
Tabular and graphical reports are produced in HTML.
B31J Standard Test Method for Determining Stress Intensification Factors (SIF or "I-Factors") for Metallic Piping Components – 2008 Edition (Publication Date: May 30, 2008)
What is FE-SIF?
Classical pipe stress analysis programs use piping beam elements that are constrained to the limitations inherent with beam elements. For example, beam elements do not capture the effect of ovalization where the cross section of the pipe deforms away from the unloaded round geometry.
To compensate for the limitations, correction factors are applied to the beam models to more closely match the flexibility and stresses of the pipe to reality. The correction factors, flexibilities and stress intensification factors (SIFs), are based on analytical and empirical relations correlated to piping component geometries. The accuracy of the correlations depends on the geometries of the piping components.
FE-SIF brings finite element analysis (FEA) to the piping designer's toolkit to provide accurate SIF and flexibility factor calculations for all geometries and load conditions. FE-SIF can be used to calculate correction factors for components outside the correlational limits of standardized design codes and for components with no guidance in the design codes
What is FE107?
What is wrong with WRC 107 and WRC 297?
WRC 107 and WRC 297 are very good documents for engineering practice. It is based on an analytical treatment of openings in cylindrical shell and hemispherical heads. This said, there are fundamental assumptions in WRC 107 and correlations that are used in the correlations that limit the application of WRC 107 in industrial applications. Commonly, computer programs do not provide warnings or guidance when the limitations are violated.
In general WRC 107 comparisons to FE/Pipe results are excellent when thin shells are analyzed and when the model is within the accepted parameters of WRC 107. Nozzles in the centers of heads are evaluated most accurately. Most WRC 107 programs give the stress intensity at four points around the nozzle on both the inside and outside of the geometry. This stress is usually compared to 3Sm (Sm is the average of the hot and cold allowable stress) and is caused by all operating loads on the nozzle. The resulting stresses from a WRC 107 run of this type should be compared to the Pl+Pb+Q stresses from the finite element calculation. Note that Pl stresses evaluated in accordance with ASME Section VIII Division 2 are membrane stresses. These are the average stresses through the thickness and do not include the bending stress component at the junction. (See ASME Section VIII Division 2 Appendix 4 Table 4-120.1.)
WRC 297 comparisons in the vessel or header tend to be good but become overly conservative when the high stress moves into the branch when the t/T ratio becomes less than 1.0. This result is certainly demonstrated in the finite element calculation.
WRC 107 tends to be somewhat less conservative than finite element results, but that WRC 107 results parallel FE calculations through d/D ranges of 0.1 to 0.8, where the WRC and Finite element curves cross, the WRC 107 results becoming much more conservative beyond this range. (When the approach used outside of WRC curve parameters is “last curve value.”)
The following list summarizes areas where WRC 107 and WRC 297 are considered weak, or where there is cause for concern.
d/D > 0.5
t/T > 1.0
Pad reinforced nozzles
Hillsides or laterals
Area replacement rules for pressure are barely satisfied and large diameter divided by thickness ration (D/T).
Temperatures are approaching the creep regime.
Cycles are greater than 5000.
Design and operating conditions are approximately the same.
The load consists of high-pressure stresses and high loads.
The Piping attached to the nozzle is long, flexible, and somewhat unrestrained.
John Breen, Becht Engineering (Mechanical): Mr. Leonard S. Thill is a Senior Engineer who is very respected in the engineering community, 17 June 2007.
L S THILL