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Piping Thickness Calculation
Piping Thickness Calculation
with an example
Process plants deal with fluids those are mostly chemical in nature with varying pressure and temperature
.these fluids are transported from one point to another through pipes. The operations must be leak free.
Plants are designed for certain no’s of years, most commonly for around 20 years. In these life cycle years it
shall contain
To satisfy these materials used to build a pipe must have high strength and ductility besides other
properties like resistance to corrosion, commercial availability etc. There comes metal into picture and that
is the reason why we see most of the pipes used in plants being metallic rather than plastic or rubber. As a
matter of fact plastics and rubber are also used but not as common as metals.
So after the designer has chosen the material of pipe a question comes how much thick should be the pipe
so that it will satisfy previously said conditions.
ASME has laid down the Procedure to calculate this. We will explore this with an example and detail
calculation.
The required thickness of straight section of pipe shall be determined by following equation (1a)
Where tm = Minimum required thickness
to calculate t = pressure design thickness in above it has given formulae in para 304.1.2
that says for t ≤ D/6 the internal pressure design thickness for straight pipes shall not be less than the
calculated in accordance with either eq (3a) below or (3b)
D = OD of pipe (in)
E = Weld joint quality factor from Table A-1a (for casting) or A-1b (for tube/pipe)
Equation (3b) (above) is seldom used and its used as a reference to verify/double check . So equation (3a) is
considered primary.
EXAMPLE:
Now we will determine the required pipe thickness for a pipe
D = Pipe OD = 30in
So to put in Equation 3a we know value of P,D only. Lets see how we can determine other values from code
After finding the material grade row find the °F temperature column. And as shown above here you can find
the allowable stress value S in (ksi) for A106 gr B for 200°F to be 20 ksi = 20000 psi.
A single bar as shown below specifies the usage of material beyond this temperature needs special
precaution.
]
Screen shot of scrolled page as below for reference.
Allowable stress value for material in between the temperature specified in the chart can be interpolated.
Find the material grade and find Ej value as shown below for our case its 1.0 so
We got E=1
If the pipe is welded i.e not seamless then you have t multiply the value given in para 302.3.4 (Ej) with the
above determined (E)
If our pipe grade specified as Astm A 135 Electric resistance welded then W value would be 0.85 as shown
below.
Y = Temp dependent co efficient
Go to table 304.1.1
As A106 gr B is ferritic steel go to ferritic steel row .And then find the temp column for your temperature.
this is the required minimum thickness after mill tolerance of 12.5% means the specified thickness by the
designer may decrease 12.5% during the manufacturing process and even after reducing 12.5% pipe
thickness should not be less than tm i.e 0.237in
as we will not get commercially available 30 in pipe with 6.8 mm thickness we have to go to b36.1 or any
pipe thickness chart on net and choose the schedule thickness which is nearest to the calculated value