Stress & Fatigue Analysis

For Piping, Valves, Vessels,

Heat Exchangers
 Stress and Fatigue Analysis for Thermal Transient
Loaded Mechanical Components

Gantner Instruments engineering service provides stress and fatigue analysis for thermal transient
loaded components of power plants or other industrial plants and applications.

Stress & Fatigue

Evaluation According to
Codes & Standards:
ASME Section III NB3200
RCC-M B3200
KTA 3201.2 / 3211.2
NUREG / CR-6909

Thermal Load Definition

Based on thermal loads g­ athered
by the process automation
system or dedicated monitoring
system, transients for the
­analysis are created.

In case input data from the normal

process instrumentation is used
the fluid temperature and heat
transfer coefficient are defined.
In case data from a monitoring
system with temperature sen­ Thermal load from process automation or dedicated monitoring system and
definition of load transients
sors at the outer surface of
a component or pipe is used,
Fourier’s heat transfer equation
is solved inversely.

Temperature evolution on nodes of FE model

2 | www.gantner-instruments.com
FE Modelling Finite Element Software
For the thermal and mechanical analysis a detailed Our analysis are performed with Code_Aster solver
finite-element model is created. developed by EDF R&D and released under GNU GPL
license.

Thermal field
calculation

Mechanical Analysis Equivalent

The thermal transient field of the analyzed pipe or stress

component is used for the stress & strain calculation.

The complete stress tensor (normal & shear stress)
is evaluated and stress ranges according to Tresca
or von Mises are determined under consideration of
plasticity factors, weld seam factors in compliance
with the codes & standards.
Stress is linearized on evaluation sections, the com­
parison with the allowable stress limit will inform if
an elastic (Ke=1) or a simplified elastic-plastic ­analysis
(Ke>1) should be performed.
Fatigue Analysis
For each considered transient the alternate stress
will be determined with a peak-valley-method or a
rainflow algorithm. The allowable number of cycles
corresponding to each alternate stress is obtained
from the corresponding fatigue curve. The sum of
all the partial usage factors over the whole lifetime
of the component should be lower than 1 to exclude
fatigue damage.

Environmentally Assisted Fatigue

R&D topics are focusing on the influence of medium
effects on fatigue lifetime. These parameters can be
considered in the evaluation as experimental fatigue
curves or numerical correction factors (Fen).

Modelling of heat exchanger

Evaluation
sections on
instrumentation
nozzle

Periode Occurence N_Fuel ∑D

Event loading

1985 – 2016 15 31 0.23

1985 – 2025 15 40 0,3

Bending moment on T-junction

Fatigue evaluation with end of life prediction at the

highest loaded section

www.gantner-instruments.com | 3
Gantner Instruments GmbH

Montafonerstrasse 4
6780 Schruns
Austria

Tel. +43 5556-77463-0

office@gantner-instruments.com

Gantner Instruments
Test & Measurement GmbH

Heidelberger Landstr. 74
64297 Darmstadt
Germany

Tel. +49 6151-95136-0 Test and Measurement Technology.

testing@gantner-instruments.com
Designed for You.
www.gantner-instruments.com