Vertical Thermosyphon Reboiler Supporting Arrangement

This was a complex job involving problems with Piping flexibility analysis.

A vertical heat exchanger functioning as thermosyphon reboiler with the tube side nozzles connected to the adjacent Amine column. Tube side inlet nozzle of size 16” NB at the bottom and tube side outlet nozzle of 36” NB at the top.

The vertical thermosyphon reboiler is mounted on an independent steel structure and the tube side nozzles are connected to the adjacent Amine column. The outlet nozzle of 36” NB is connected to the column with a very small length of piping resulting in reduced flexibility. Added to this, the elevation difference in the fixed points of the Amine column and the heat exchanger resulted in the entire arrangement being subject to differential expansion during the operating condition. As a result of this, excessive loads were encountered on the 36” NB nozzle on the Amine column. In order to reduce these excessive loads multiple iterations of analysis were performed by varying the support lug elevation on the vertical heat exchanger. Finally, it was decided to mount the reboiler on 4 spring cans to keep the nozzle loads within acceptable limits. This analysis was performed for various loading conditions, including seismic, wind, operating, empty etc.