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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Greulich, Owen R., author. | Jawad, Maan H., author.
Title: Fabrication of metallic pressure vessels / Owen R. Greulich, Maan H. Jawad.
Description: First edition. | Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021035014 (print) | LCCN 2021035015 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119674863 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119674900 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119674887 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Pressure vessels–Design and construction.
Classification: LCC TA660.T34 G74 2021 (print) | LCC TA660.T34 (ebook) | DDC 681/.76041–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021035014 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021035015
Cover image: © Chris A. Cimarolli
Cover design by Wiley
To our wives
Cathy Greulich
Dixie Jawad
Preface
Pressure vessels are fabricated in thousands of facilities throughout the world. The fabrication processes differ from company to company, and even from plant to plant for the same company. Even within the same plant, construction of similar vessels will at times be performed in different ways for a variety of reasons.
Some companies produce large quantities of the same or essentially duplicate vessels. They typically develop designs that lend themselves to high production rates, as well as specialized tooling and processes to optimize production of those designs.
Other manufacturers specialize in pressure vessels for a particular function, such as heat exchanger vessels, and design their processes, tooling, and facilities around the type of product produced.
Still other fabricators make a specialty of constructing unique vessels. For these organizations, nearly every product is different from every other, covering a range of sizes, configurations, thicknesses, and purposes. Their business often comes from research organizations or from businesses that use very limited numbers of vessels for special applications, which cannot typically be obtained off the shelf. While using many of the same tools and machines as other manufacturers, fabrication of each vessel is planned as an individual project.
The volume of information that engineers need to absorb to work in the current environment has increased, and at the same time the opportunities for experience in manufacturing environments have in many cases decreased. The authors of this book, recognizing a dearth of readily available information in the field, felt that it would be useful to share their long experience in pressure vessel fabrication with a consolidated reference in this area.
The topics in this book cover various processes required in the fabrication of process equipment. This material will give the reader a broad understanding of the steps required in fabricating pressure vessels and includes such topics as cutting, forming, welding, machining, and testing. Each chapter presents a specific fabrication step and details its characteristics and requirements. Equations, charts, tables, figures, and other aids are presented, where appropriate, to help the reader implement the requirements in actual fabrication. Additional data is presented in the appendices at the end of the book as an aid to the user.
Acknowledgments
This book could not have been written without the help of many people.
Many thanks to Marks Brothers with the help of Nathan Marks and Dean Marleau, and to Harris Thermal with the help of Eric Groenweghe, Arnold Fuchs, Brice Parrow, Josh Thatch, and Jim Nylander for spending their time with the authors to access various pieces of equipment and machinery in their fabrication plants. Thanks is also given to Nooter Construction with the help of Chris Cimorelli, Mike Bytnar, and Steve Meierotto for providing many pressure vessel photographs.
Historical photographs were obtained with the help of Pat Hachanadel and Patrick Wayne of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Zhili Feng of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Nolan O’Brien of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Susumu Terada of Kobe Steel in Japan and David Anderson of Doosan Babcock in England helped with metric unit conversions. Sam Greulich lent his artistic talent to restoring some old photographs and Mike Kelly assisted in obtaining material cost comparisons. Bud Brust provided welding residual stress plots.
Many of the weld symbols in the book were obtained courtesy of the American Welding Society with the help of Peter Potela. Photographs of weld equipment were supplied by CB&I Storage Solutions with the help of Koray Kuscu and Dale Swanson. A photo of a pipe beveler was supplied by E. W. Wachs with the help of Keith Polifka.
Appendix I contains shackle dimensions obtained courtesy of Crosby Corporation with the assistance of Michael Campbell. Bigge Corporation with the assistance of Randy Smith supplied a photo of a heavy transporter.
Lane Barnholtz of Clemco and Gavin Gooden of Blast One gave permission for publishing a blast room and a paint room photo, respectively.
Special thanks are given to Gabriella Robles of Wiley and Mary Grace Stefanchik of ASME for their expert help, without which this book would not have been possible.
1 Introduction
1.1 Introduction
The fabrication of process equipment involves a straightforward but complex sequence of operations that is developed and refined by industry or by individual manufacturers over the years. Each successful manufacturer of such equipment will have its own ways of working and will differ from others in the details of how processes are performed and level at which documentation becomes formalized, but the essential elements remain the same.
Some fabricators of process equipment have
