FINITE-ELEMENT STUDY OF KEYED BACKING RING DESIGN FOR FLOATING HEAD

This paper examines the design procedure for a single split backing ri ng used in a heat exchanger floating head. The present design procedur es per established design codes are considered by many designers as to o conservative, and hence finite element analysis was used to investig ate this problem. The study only concentrated on keyed backing ring pe r BS 5500 Code Case 36. The study showed that the present design proce dure is not precise but modifications could be made so that the approa ch used by BS5500 Code Case 36 will yield a more economic design. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.