Summary
Design of pressure vessels - Design of piping systems - Design of steel structures - Structural and Finite Elements Analysis (FEA) - Seismic, Dynamic and Wind Analyses - Safety valves analyses - Safety analyses - Hazard assessment
We carry out the construction design of pressure equipment and parts of boilers in steel and not ferrous materials in accordance with the main international standards, in addition to the Italian Regulation “Raccolta VSR” and “Raccolta VSG”.
We have thirty years’ experience of application of the design rules of the Section VIII, Division 1 and 2, and Section III of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC).
In these years we have also designed and certified hundreds projects in accordance with EN 13445, PD 5500, AD-2000, CODAP and Stoomwezen.
Our design commitment includes the design (or calculation) report and the construction drawings. Where and when necessary, design is assisted by finite element models, which are used in those cases (but not limited to) where it needs a precise calculation of the state stress near to discontinuities (of any type) or because of complex load conditions or is necessary the calculation of the peak stresses to perform fatigue or fatigue-creep assessment.
We have developed many automatic calculation sheets in order to easily and safely compute the most typical design situation and manage a valuable data base of construction material, operating fluid and equipment types.
We are long trained in either design by rules or formulae (DBR or DBF: VSR, ASME VIII-1, AD-2000, CODAP, BSI PD 5500, EN 13445) or design by analysis (DBA: ASME VIII-2, ASME III, BSI PD 5500 Annex A, EN 13445 Appendix A and B), and in using finite elements for the evaluation and categorization of complex states of stress. In addition to the more usual static analyses, we also perform fatigue assessment analyses and stability analyses (bifurcation load).
In the frame of PED certification, we take care of the preparation of the Technical Report and its attachments.
In the frame of ASME certification, we support the Clients in the implementation of the Quality Control Manual in his organization, with reference especially to the welding procedures, the material inspection, the non-destructive examinations, the final test.
The engineering of complex piping systems is very demanding of many different expertise that, often, are beyond the capacity of a single engineering office. In this frame, therefore, we offer mainly analyses and consulting services. The former are essentially related to piping and piping components sizing and design calculations, and the flexibility analysis of integrated and high temperature systems. The flexibility analysis are usually performed with Caesar II software, in addition to Propipe. Our standard experience in this filed ranges from ASME B31.1 , ASME B31.3, ASME B31.4 and ASME B 31.8 to the European Norm EN 13480.
Selection and sizing of line supports is also supported by the typical drawings that we have developed in these years and collected in a reference book.
Seismic and wind analyses of piping are also performed, as well as the underground piping analyses.
On demand, we develop the piping class specifications, the isometric drawings and the support details.
Even though, as the Portfolio page shows, we achieved important experiences on concrete too, on the structural engineering field we are eminently aimed at designing steel structures for industrial applications. In this field we carried out the design of the supporting structures of boiler of big (as the WaigaoQiao, China, Coal Power Plant 900 MW Boiler) or medium power (as for Waste Treatment Plants), latticeworks, crosswalk bridges, skid frames, big nominal diameter piping support frames, industrial building roofs in composite steel-concrete.
The experience achieved concerns mainly the use of the AISC – Allowable Stress Design (ASD) method, the most frequently adopted in the plant engineering and construction. We, however, have also experiences of AISC LRFD (Load Resistance Factor Design) method, the Italian new Technical Norms for Construction (NTC 2008), including all previous regulations, and the structural Eurocodes.
Steel structure design id usually performed using GTStrudl software.
In addition to the beam models mainly used for the design of steel structures, we also perform structural, thermal and thermo-mechanical analyses of plate/shell or complex geometry structures using the finite element approach. For this purpose we make use of Ansys, in addition to GTStrudl. With Ansys we have, for instance, evaluated the state of stress due to the temperature distribution in steel frames used in fuel cell technology.
Is longer than thirty years that we got experience in Seismic and Dynamic analysis. We performed spectrum analyses , modal analyses, pulse analyses for different structural typologies (lattice works, plate and shells), pressure vessels, towers, columns and piping systems. We work with the NTC 2008, regarding the constructions to be erected in Italy, with the Eurocodes (1 for wind, 8 for earthquake) or with the national codes that time by time are requested by the customer. Overseas we got important experiences with American Standards like ASCE 7 and the IBC (former UBC).
Regarding the wind analyses we got experience of the guidelines issued by CICIND and CECM n. 52.
The analysis of the safety valves essentially consists in computing the required flow area or the required discharge capacity at the thermodynamic conditions which the valve is set to. Any type of fluid, gas/vapor, steam or liquid, is considered. The reference norms we are trained with are: EN 4126, in Europe, and API RP-520 and RP-521, elsewhere. We prepared automatic calculation procedures in accordance with the above standards that make use of a valuable database collected in years of activity.
We carry out analyses for the classification of hazardous locations in process (chemical and petrochemical) and off-shore facilities, with reference to the standards API RP-500, API RP-14c, IEC 60069-10, NFPA 72 and 2001.
The Hazard Assessment id usually performed as part of the consulting activity on the European New Approach Directives. In this filed we implemented a software procedure to perform the hazard assessment required by the New Machine Directive in accordance with the harmonized standards (UNI EN 12100:2010, UNI EN ISO 14121-1:2007).
