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P
iping-flexibility and stress rest the piping on pipe racks or other ASME code
analysis are required in the support structures. The piping is either ASME B31 code for pressure piping
design of most piping systems supported directly on the pipe wall or is an American National Standard.
before the piping is installed through pipe shoes, which are attach- It also becomes a safety code when
in a chemical-process or other ments placed under the pipe to distrib- adopted by federal, state, or local
plant. It is intended to ensure the ute the pipe weight and other loads to governments. Nowadays, most non-
safety of the plant and thus protect the support. These types of supports nuclear piping systems in the U.S. and
the interests of the owner and the gen- are generally called resting supports. in many other countries are designed
eral public. Owing to the availability These supports are single-acting, be- according to ASME B31 code. Among
of powerful computer software pack- cause they only stop the pipe from many other things, the code requires
ages, the analysis has become simple moving downward but allow the pipe to that the piping shall be designed to
and routine. However, due to miscon- move up freely. Due to the nature of this meet the limitation of the following
ceptions of some software approaches, non-linearity, exact solutions cannot be categories of stresses.
some analyses performed do not reflect expected for piping that goes through a. Internal pressure stress, Shp:
the actual situation of the piping. The various temperature cycles. Therefore, Stresses due to internal pressure shall
engineers have unwittingly performed three major schools of thought have be less than the basic code allowable
many erroneous analyses that put the been conceived in the pipe-stress-soft- stress, including longitudinal joint ef-
safety of the plants in jeopardy. One ware community with regards to rest- ficiency, of the pipe at design tempera-
of the most common misconceptions ing supports and temperature cycles. ture, Sh(E).
adopted by some computer programs Unfortunately, two of these are in ap- b. Longitudinal (sustained) stress,
is the method of analyzing the piping parent violation of the code require- SL: The sum of longitudinal stresses
with regards to resting supports. ments. As a basis for explaining how due to pressure, weight, and other sus-
The most common and economical these computer methods violate the tained loadings shall not exceed the
approach in dealing with the numerous code, the requirements of the code are allowable stress, excluding longitudi-
lines of piping in a process plant is to summarized in the following. nal joint efficiency, at design tempera-
48 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHE.COM FEBRUARY 2006
NOMENCLATURE
E Longitudinal-joint S Stress SE Expansion stress range SL Sustained longitudinal
efficiency of the pipe SA Allowable stress range for SEC Expansion stress at stress
e Strain thermal expansion and cool-down (cold) state Slp Sustained longitudinal
f Stress-range-reduction displacement stresses Sh Basic allowable stress stress due to pressure
factor, f =1.0 Sc Basic allowable stress of the pipe material at Slw Sustained longitudinal
for 7,000 or fewer of the pipe material at operating (hot) stress due to weight
operation cycles ambient (cold) temperature Sy Yield strength of the
temperature pipe material
The stress range due to thermal expan- tures where the yield strength gov-
sion of pipe, movements of restraints, erns the allowable stress, 1.25.(Sc
earthquake or wind sway, tidal move- + Sh) is roughly equivalent to 1.56.
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ment, and temperature change in con- Sy for ASME B31.1 code, and 1.67.
nected equipment shall not exceed the Sy for ASME B31.3 code, where Sy is
allowable displacement stress range the yield strength of the pipe mate-
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