Reinforcement Design of the Support Frame of a Petrochemical Heater

Abstract

In this paper, we investigated the operating security of the support frame of a petrochemical heater under the action of a strong wind. When the fatigue limit was exceeded, the support frame was damaged. We monitored the heater before reinforcement and then applied the finite element method to analyze and compare nine different kinds of reinforcement methods for the support frame. From the results of the finite element analysis, fatigue failure of the support frame before reinforcement occurred at locations where the computed stresses from the finite element analysis were large, thus partially justifying the adequacies of the present analysis methods and results. Among the nine reinforcement methods, we suggest case 9 to reinforce a support frame so that its operating security under the action of a strong wind can be improved. At the end of this paper, several future studies are suggested, including verification of the reinforcement for the support frame and the establishment of the system for automatic stress monitoring and analysis.