Yes, sorry for the short post, I wanted to see if I would get any interest in the topic at all.
The actual application is a vertical vessel consisting of three parts. Starting from the bottom of the bottom portion there is a bottom head (16.9 elliptical pipe cap), a section of cylindrical shell, and a weld-neck flange. The second section consists of a flat plate with a multitude of thru holes drilled in it in a pattern. This portion gets sandwiched between the bottom section and the top section. The top section is a weld-neck flange with a pipe cap welded to the top of it.
There are various other nozzles and so forth, but I am mainly interested in how to analyze the middle section. I know the pressure differential on the middle section. I don't see anything explicit in ND (this is a class 3 vessel). Any help would be great. Thanks!
Mumawalde, assuming there are two tubesheets on the middle section this sounds like a fixed-tubesheet exchanger, TEMA type BEM. I am not at all familiar with Sec III, but if no specific rules, it could be designed per TEMA as yamoffathoo suggested, Sec VIII, Div 1 Part UHX, or perhaps another code. You will need to review Sec III to see what is permitted.
Thank you all for the help. I have reviewed all suggestions, and in my case am going to use Section VIII Div 1 Part UHX.
While A-8000 seems to be the most applicable at first sight, At the beginning of Section III, Div 1, App A A-8000 there are 5 criteria that must be met, and this design does not meet criteria number 5, since there is a differential pressure on the part, the loading is not "in-plane" and the thickness is not at least twice the hole pitch.
Since the Section VIII approach is readily available to me, I'm going to attempt it.
