New On-line Pressure Vessel and Heat Exchanger Design Course in October 2024

From 7 to 10 October 2024 we have scheduled our seventh on-line course on the design of pressure vessels and heat exchangers in English language.

The course consists of daily on-line classes with a 3 hours lesson in the morning and another 3 hours lesson in the afternoon and is mainly focused on DBF (= Design by Formulae) and different standards are considered, as ASME Code, the harmonized standard EN 13445, the German standard AD 2000, the British code PD 5500, the French Code CODAP and the Italian standard ISPESL-VSR, in order to show the differences (in many cases not at all negligible) among components with the same design conditions, however calculated with different design codes.

The course content is continuously updated in order to take into account the changes in the main Pressure Vessel codes.

Practical examples are presented to show the most important design procedures for complicate components, like flanges, heat exchanger tubesheets, saddles of horizontal vessels, in which the optimization of the geometrical parameters has a strong impact on the price of the vessel.

The purpose of the course is also to teach participants how to minimize the time needed for the design, which for manufacturers (particularly for those who usually have to make a preliminary design in order to prepare offers) may be very important to increase their competitiveness on the market.

In the course also elements of DBA (= Design by Analysis) are given, in order to put the participants under conditions to correctly assess a FEM analysis prepared by others, bearing in mind that such calculations (despite of the accuracy obtained in the calculation of stresses by means of the most popular FEM computer programs) may be completely misleading if the right failure modes were not considered by the software, or if the stress categorization was not correctly made by the designer.

The topics of the single lessons will be as follows:

Lesson 1 – GENERAL NOTIONS OF PRESSURE VESSEL DESIGN 

• General principles: design according to ASME and design according to PED
• Material selection
• Risk analysis: pressure, temperature, risk of overheating, risk connected to quick opening closures
• Design procedures: design by formulae (DBF), design by analysis (DBA) and design by experiment (DBE)
• Loads and stresses: hints of stress analisys, stress categorization
• Loading conditions
• Failure modes
• Stresses and strains
• DBF: cross comparison of different design standards
• DBA: general description of the different methods
• Practical examples

Lesson 2A –  MECHANICAL DESIGN FOR INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL PRESSURE 

• Calculation for internal and external pressure of cylindrical shells, spherical ends, domed ends, conical shells.
• Reinforcement openings
• Flat ends
• Practical examples of Pressure Vessel design using the software

Lesson 2B – MECHANICAL DESIGN OF BOLTED FLANGE CONNECTIONS 

• General principles for the design of a gasketed joint: bolt tightening, gasket seating, residual gasket compression needed to assure leak tightness
• Criteria for gasket selection – hints on self energizing gaskets
• Different flange types: welding neck, slip on, loose, reverse, with full face gasket
• Main methods for flange calculation: Taylor-Forge, DIN, Annex G of EN 13445.3, EN 1591.1
• Cross comparison of the different methods
• Practical examples of flange design using the software

Lesson 3A – THERMAL DESIGN OF SHELL & TUBE HEAT EXCHANGERS 

• Basic principles of thermal design
• Different types of shell&tube heat exchangers
• Thermal exchange in single phase flow: heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops
• Single phase flow in a tube
• Single phase flow across a tube bundle: different types of baffles
• Fouling factors
• Two phase flow: condensers and reboilers
• Thermosiphon reboilers
• Vibrations
• Practical examples of thermal calculations using HTRI® software

Lesson 3B – MECHANICAL DESIGN OF SHELL & TUBE HEAT EXCHANGERS 

• Different heat exchanger types: floating head, U-tube, fixed tubesheet
• Design of tubesheets
• Fixed tubesheet exchangers: Annex J of EN 13445-3
• Design of expansion bellows
• Design of pass partitions
• Practical examples of mechanical design using the software

Lesson 4A – PRESSURE VESSEL DESIGN FOR LOADS OTHER THAN PRESSURE 

• Calculation of tall vertical vessels for wind and seismic loads
• Horizontal vessels on saddle supports
• Nozzle loads
• Pressure vessel supports
• Practical examples using the software

Lesson 4B – DESIGN FOR CYCLIC LOADS 

• General principles of fatigue design
• Simplified fatigue assessment according to AD S1 and to Clause 17 of EN 13445.3
• Detailed fatigue assessment according to AD S2, to Clause 18 of EN 13445.3 and ASME Section VIII division 2
• Practical example of a complete fatigue calculation using the simplified method of Clause 17 EN 13445.3

The Speaker of the course is Dr. Fernando Lidonnici,  European expert on pressure equipment design, who is the Coordinator of the European workgroup WG53/ CEN TC54, which developed the design part of EN 13445, ASME Member and President of EPERC (European Pressure Equipment Research Council). In 2018 he was awarded the Donald Julius Groen Prize from IMechE, the British Institution of Mechanical Engineers, for his activity in the field of European Pressure Vessel Norms.

Click here to open the course flier, which contains also the registration form, as well all details on the registration fees and participation conditions.

For any information on the course don’t hesitate to contact us (Mr. Bordoni at bordoni@sant-ambrogio.it )