Chemical Engineering Plant

Design
SELECTION OF MATERIALS
1. Preliminary selection
Experience, manufacturer’s data, special literature, general
literature, availability, safety aspects, preliminary laboratory
tests
2. Laboratory testing
3. Interpretation of laboratory results and other data
Effect of possible impurities, excess temperature, excess
pressure, agitation, and presence of air in equipment
Avoidance of electrolysis, Fabrication method
4. Economic comparison of apparently suitable materials
5. Final selection
ECONOMICS IN SELECTION OF
MATERIALS

• Total equipment or materials costs

• Installation costs
• Maintenance costs
• Estimated life
• Replacement costs
FABRICATION OF EQUIPMENT
• Layout of materials
• Cutting to correct dimensions
• Forming into desired shape
• Fastening
• Testing
• Heat-treating
• Finishing
Layout
• The first step in the fabrication is to establish the layout
of the various components on the basis of detailed
instructions prepared by the fabricator.
• Flat pieces of the metal or other constructional material
involved are marked to indicate where cutting and
forming are required.
• Allowances must be made for losses caused by cutting,
shrinkage due to welding, or deformation caused by the
various forming operations.
• After the equipment starts to take shape, the location of
various outlets and attachments will become necessary.
Cutting
• Several methods can be used for cutting the laid-out
materials to the correct size.
• Shearing is the cheapest method and is satisfactory for
relatively thin sheets.
• The edge resulting from a shearing operation may not be
usable for welding, and the sheared edges may require
an additional grinding or machining treatment.
• Burning is often used for cutting metals.
• This method can be employed to cut and,
simultaneously, prepare a beveled edge suitable for
welding.
• Carbon steel is easily cut by an oxyacetylene flame.
• An oxyacetylene flame is used, and powdered iron is
introduced into the cut to increase the amount of heat
and improve the cutting characteristics.
• The high temperatures involved may affect the
materials, resulting in the need for a final heat-treatment
to restore corrosion resistance or removal of the heat-
affected edges.
• Sawing can be used to cut metals that are in the form of
flat sheets.
• However, sawing is expensive, and it is used only when
the heat effects from burning would be detrimental.
 Forming
• After the constructional materials have been cut, the next
step is to form them into the desired shape by various
methods such as rolling, bending, pressing, bumping or
spinning on a die.
• In some cases, heating may be necessary in order to carry
out the forming operation.
• Because of work hardening of the material, annealing
may be required before forming and between stages
during the forming.
• When the shaping operations are finished, the different
parts are assembled and fitted for fastening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuxRkt_ics0
Fastening
• Riveting can be used for fastening operations, but electric
welding is far more common and gives superior results.
• The quality of a weld is very important, because the
ability of equipment to withstand pressure or corrosive
conditions is often limited by the conditions along the
welds.
• Although good welds may be stronger than the metal
that is fastened together, design engineers usually
assume a weld is not perfect and employ weld
efficiencies of 80 to 95 percent in the design of pressure
vessels.
• The most common type of
welding is the manual
shielded-arc process in which
an electrode approximately 14
to 16 in. long is used and an
electric arc is maintained
manually between the
electrode and the material
being welded.
• The electrode melts and forms
a filler metal, while, at the
same time, the work material
fuses together. .
• A submerged-arc process is commonly used for welding
stainless steels and carbon steels when an automatic
operation is acceptable.
• The electrode is a continuous roll of wire fed at an
automatically controlled rate.
• The arc is submerged in a granulated flux which serves
the same purpose as the coating on the rods in the
shielded-arc process.
• Hefiurc welding is used for stainless steels and most of
the nonferrous materials.
• A stream of helium or argon gas is passed from a nozzle
in the electrode holder onto the weld, where the inert
gas acts as a shielding blanket to protect the molten
metal.
• As in the shielded-arc and submerged-arc processes, a
filler rod is fed into the weld, but the arc in the heliarc
process is formed between a tungsten electrode and the
base metal.
• In some cases, fastening can be accomplished by use of
various solders, such as brazing solder (mp, 840 to
905°C) containing about 50 percent each of copper and
zinc; silver solders (mp, 650 to 870°C) containing silver,
copper, and zinc; or ordinary solder (mp, 220°C)
containing 50 percent each of tin and lead.
• Screw threads, packings, gaskets, and other mechanical
methods are also used for fastening various parts of
equipment.
Testing
• All welded joints can be tested for concealed
imperfections by X rays, and code specifications usually
require X-ray examination of main seams.
• Hydrostatic tests can be conducted to locate leaks.
• Sometimes, delicate tests, such as a helium probe test,
are used to check for very small leaks.
Heat-treating
• After the preliminary testing and necessary repairs are
completed, it may be necessary to heat-treat the
equipment to remove forming and welding stresses,
restore corrosion-resistance properties to heat-affected
materials, and prevent stress-corrosion conditions.
• A low-temperature treatment may be adequate, or the
particular conditions may require a full anneal followed
by a rapid quench.
Finishing
• The finishing operation involves preparing the equipment
for final shipment.
• Sandblasting, polishing, and painting may be necessary.
• Final pressure tests at 1 to 2 or more times the design
pressure are conducted together with other tests as
demanded by the specified code or requested by the
inspector.