Explosive Welding (Tubes to Tubesheet) 1

[PhilOos]

Good day,

I'm looking at using the explosive welding technique to weld a tube bundle to a tubesheet or header for feedwater heaters.

I need to check the ligament efficiency of the tubesheet in order to determine if it can handle the forces imposed by the welding process. I've searched for calculation methods and codes, but to no avail.

Can anyone help or guide me into the right direction as to what literature or codes to consult?

Kind Regards,



Philip Oosthuizen
Company info:
SteinMuller Engineering Services

http://www.steinmuller.co.za/

 

[MiketheEngineer]

If memory serves - there were two professors of Engineering one at the University of Missouri at Columbia and one at U of Mo at Rolla that were big into this type of thing. It was a few ears ago. You might find some help there. Good Luck.

 

[metengr]

Try AMEX Heat Exchanger Services, in WI. They are very knowledgeable regarding explosive welding for Hx's.

http://www.amexservices.com/

 

[EdStainless]

Pay the guys at AmEx to help you.
They have done many of these, and in fact do almost all of the explosive expansion and welding work for all fabricators in NA.

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Plymouth Tube

 

[unclesyd]

The first two links are to related by and selected by S. Yokell. The second two are papers from Scientific Net.
The papers from the first two could probably gotten from the Linda Hall Library Library for a small fee.or their respective organizations.

http://www.mgt-inc.com/tube_to_tubesheet_joints.html

http://www.hpro.com/papers.php

http://www.scientific.net/AMR.118-120.186

http://www.scientific.net/KEM.321-323.414

Aside from the Amex reference Babcock Power has division, TSi, that was part of the old Struthers Wells. We had two exchangers explosively expanded by SW.

 

[rmw]

TEi, Thermal Engineering International once had a division that specialized in explosive expansion and explosive tube welding that pretty well developed the process way back when they were arch competitors of Struthers Wells who they later bought. This was even before they were part of Babcock Power.

The division also specialized in explosive demolition of obsolete offshore structures and as I remember it, they sold that division off but retained the explosive tube expansion and plugging technology. They were less interested in selling the technology than using it for their own purposes in making high pressure heat exchangers.

That division's name will come to me later and if it does, I will post back. Their operation was somewher in "Outback," Mississippi just north of Biloxi. The guys who originated the process (who TEi or SWECO bought) may have been selling the technology to Struters before Tei bought them and even after I suspect.

TEi was formerly known as South West Engineering and later SWECO and after being purchased by Senior Engineering, they took on the name TEi somewhere in there. That was about the time they were owned by Balcke Durr.

I met Stan Yokell and his partner Carl Andreone at one of TEi's offices somewhere. Interesting character.

rmw

 

[rmw]

And here is where the explosive tube expansion and plugging ended up:

http://www.babcockpower.com/pdf/teis-01.pdf

After the Struthers purchase, they combined the services divisions and called it TEi Struthers Services. Struthers Wells still operates as a stand alone division of BPI.

rmw

 

[PhilOos]

Thanks for the replies...
I know TEi very well, they do the actual explosive welding and I'm doing the heat exchanger design. The problem is, I need to show ligament stress calculations to get my design approved by the third party, but can't find a way / code to calculate it (without having to use a dynamic FEM code).

Regards

Philip Oosthuizen
Company info:
SteinMuller Engineering Services

http://www.steinmuller.co.za/

 

[unclesyd]

Here are several papers on the subject matter in the OP. There might be some good leads for you in the papers.

http://eprints.kfupm.edu.sa/1707/1/P371.pdf

http://www.odonnellconsulting.com/pplates.pdf

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/pdf/fdm1034.pdf

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/770645-YrZwHC/webviewable/770645.pdf