Basis of the Tubesheet Heat Exchanger Design Rules Used in the French Pressure Vessel Code

Abstract

For about 40 years most tubesheet exchangers have been designed according to the standards of TEMA. Partly due to their simplicity, these rules do not assure a safe heat-exchanger design in all cases. This is the main reason why new tubesheet design rules were developed in 1981 in France for the French pressure vessel code CODAP. For fixed tubesheet heat exchangers, the new rules account for the “elastic rotational restraint” of the shell and channel at the outer edge of the tubesheet, as proposed in 1959 by Galletly. For floating-head and U-tube heat exchangers, the approach developed by Gardner in 1969 was selected with some modifications. In both cases, the tubesheet is replaced by an equivalent solid plate with adequate effective elastic constants, and the tube bundle is simulated by an elastic foundation. The elastic restraint at the edge of the tubesheet due the shell and channel is accounted for in different ways in the two types of heat exchangers. The purpose of the paper is to present the main basis of these rules and to compare them to TEMA rules.