You are on page 1of 2

Alignment Check Methodology in Piping

Stress Analysis using Caesar II


November 14, 2018 11 Comments

0
0
0
“Alignment Checking” this term is quite familiar with piping engineers and all construction
engineers. During piping installation at construction site it is expected that equipment flange
should match perfectly (aligned) with the piping flange so that during bolting no problem
occurs. But achieving that perfect alignment is very difficult to achieve. If this alignment for
rotary equipments are not proper then there may be several problems in future during
operation which may lead to vibration of equipment/piping system or in some situation
equipment failure. American Petroleum Institute code API RP 686 provides the data for
acceptable deviation from the ideal perfect alignment. As per the code if the vertical and
horizontal deviation of piping flange and rotary equipment flange center line is within 1.5
mm and parallelism (rotation) is within 0.0573 degree then the alignment is accepted
otherwise means to be devised to bring the deviation within those values. While performing
stress analysis of rotary equipment connected piping systems in Caesar II we can very easily
ensure this limitation. The following write up will describe the step by step method of doing
the same.

Alignment check of nozzle flange shall be performed for all Rotating Equipments like
Centrifugal Compressor, Steam Turbine, Centrifugal Pumps, Gear Pumps etc as per
following procedure.
Steps for performing Alignment checking:

 Ensure correct weight of the pipe (with proper thickness), Support weight (dummy
pipe), Weight of valves, flanges and any in-line items.
 Consider Insulation density carefully (equivalent insulation density to be correctly fed
with insulation & cladding weight, Check insulation on dummies for cold insulated
lines).
 Model all branch piping (like drip legs etc.) greater than 2 inches.
 Discuss with piping lead engineer for requirement of any maintenance flanges
(Normally for steam turbine or centrifugal connected lines the maintenance flange is
recommended) and include it if required.
 Minimize the sustained load on equipment nozzle as much as possible during static
analysis run of the Caesar model.
 Normal industry practice is to analyse the Alignment checking in separate file. So
rename the static file as Filename_Alignment.C2
 Make the equipment nozzle anchor flexible or remove the displacement if anchor was
not modeled.
 Wherever spring support is used, define spring rate and cold load in case of variable
effort spring & Constant effort support load in case of constant effort spring.
 After performing the above create one additional load case in Caesar II as mentioned
below:

WNC+H SUS System with spring hanger


WNC SUS System without spring hanger

 Set the spring hanger as “As designed”.(Two load cases can be generated for spring
As designed and rigid condition)
 Now run the analysis and check the displacements of the nozzle at the above
mentioned load case and limit them within below mentioned values:

Vertical deflection (Normally DY): +/- 1.5 mm


Horizontal displacement (sqrt sum of DX and DZ): +/- 1.5 mm
Parallelism (sqrt sum of RX and RZ) : 0.0573 degree.

 In case the above limitations are not met then re-analyse by readjusting the spring and
other supports and do the simulation.
 Alignment check is to be performed for both inlet and outlet lines.
 Alignment check must be performed with spring under both in “As designed” and in
“locked” condition.
 To avoid small misalignment in vertical direction first support from rotary equipment
nozzle is used either a spring support or an adjustable type support.

You might also like