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Proceedings of the ASME 2016 35 International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering
OMAE2016
June 19-24, 2016, Busan, Korea
OMAE2016-54652
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
Hot Bolting is the practice of removing and replacing or
freeing and re-tightening bolts on live operating piping and Hot Bolting is the sequential removal and replacement of bolts
equipment while the system is pressurized. It is potentially in a flanged joint, while the system is pressurized under
hazardous and the utmost caution needs to be exercised when operation. It is not recommended as best practice although it is
planning and carrying it out. The hot bolting tools designed by widely carried out. The hot bolting operation could be
Irgens Engineering AS aim to establish a safe barrier for flange performed without or with the help of additional tools.
connections during the hot bolting operation. Their application
would extend the hot bolting operation, increase the safety and The hot bolting has the potential to save time and costs by
simplify the working process. Qualification of new hot bolting allowing a continuous operation in the plants and platforms.
tools was carried out by the joint efforts of producer, operator However, any potential benefits arising from hot bolting should
and classification society. The paper addresses a part of the be carefully weighed against the risks encountered. The
integrity assessment of the new hot bolting tools. The non- Engineering Equipment Materials and Users Association
linear finite element analyses were performed by ABAQUS for (EEMUA) have published an information sheet in 1999 called
sequential loading during hot bolting operation under the Guidance Procedures for the Removal and Replacement of
temperature specified by operator and the non-linear contact Flanged Joint Bolting on Live Piping and Equipment [23]. The
interactions between different components were taken into guidance from EEMUA is applicable for hot bolting operation
account in the analysis. In the present study, the structural without any tool/clamp and it was essential document before
integrity was investigated for 4" class 1500 flange with ring carrying out any bolt work on live plant.
gasket and class 150 flanges with IFG gasket of four different
dimensions (1/2", 1.5", 3", and 8"). The gasket stress and strain In the EEMUA information sheet the application of the hot
as well as contact pressure of the gasket were studied to bolting without any tool/clamp is restricted by [23]:
investigate the possible leakage. The test was performed for 4" 1) Flange joints considered for hot bolting should have a
class 1500 flange with ring gasket by Irgens Engineering AS, minimum of eight bolts and the bolt material should have a
and the comparison between analysis and test results showed minimum strength equal to or greater than grades B7/2H.
good agreement both for the gap between flange just outside 2) Hot bolting should not be carried out on joints which show
ring gasket and the flange bolt force. significant signs of corrosion or necking, or which have
worn or cracked threads on the fasteners.
Keywords: Hot bolting, structural integrity, sequential loading,
finite element analysis, gasket.
Class 150 Flange with IFG gasket [11, 13, 16, 17, 18,
19]
The class 150 flanges with IFG gasket with four different
dimensions are shown in Table 4 and they have same material
properties as presented in Table 3. The elastic material
properties of flange are used in the numerical simulation. The
Figure 3 Type R ring gasket gasket data (IFG 5500, 2mm Gasket) given in [8] is used in the
simulation and the relation of the Secant unloading modulus EG
Table 3 Material properties of 4" class 1500 flange with ring and gasket thickness eG is shown in Table 5.
gasket
Part Young's modulus E Poisson Yield Stress Table 4 Dimension of class 150 flange with IFG gasket [5, 6]
(GPa) (MPa) Part Dimension " 1.5" 3" 8"
Flange/pipe 210 0.3 250 Inner diameter (mm) 21 49 89 219
Flange bolts 210 0.3 724 IFG gasket Outer diameter (mm) 48 86 137 279
Ring gasket 210 0.3 200 Thickness (mm) 1 1 1 1
Blot circle (inches) 5/8 5/8 3/4 7/8
Bolt diameter (inches) 1/2 1/2 5/8 3/4
Flange bolt
Number of bolts 4 4 4 8
Bolt circle diameter 60.3 98.4 152.4 298.5
(mm)
Hex nuts of Height (inches) 31/64 31/64 39/64 47/64
flange bolts Width (inches) 7/8 7/8 17/16 1.25
Outside diameter 90 125 190 345
(mm)
Inner diameter (mm) 15.8 40.9 77.9 202.7
Flange thickness 9.6 15.9 22.3 27
Flange
(mm)
Length (welding 46 60 68 100
neck) (mm)
Hub diameter (mm) 30 65 108 246
Pipe diameter (mm) 21.3 48.3 88.9 219.1
The contact pressure pattern over the surface of the ring gasket
is shown in Figure 10 for load steps 6. The minimum contact
pressure over the surface of the ring gasket drops from 418
Figure 6 Verification of the input of gasket material model MPa (at load step 5) to 368 MPa (at load step 6) which is about
in ABAQUS [21] 10 times of the applied pressure during pressure testing (38
Upper flange
Lower flange
Figure 11 Flange stress at step 5
Class 150 Flange with IFG gasket [11, 13, 16, 17, 18,
19]
The Von Mises stress of gasket along the radial path towards
bolt F1 which is removed in step 6 is shown in Table 7 for 1/2"
class 150 flanges with IFG gasket. The gasket stress reaches
maximum after step 1, and its variation is small during step 2 to
5. The stress drops more significantly at outer circle of gasket Figure 14 Gasket stress at step 6 of removing one flange
than at inner circle when bolt F1 is removed in step 6 and the bolt-F1 (1/2" class 150 flange)
most critical load step is step 7 with removing of all four bolts.
The Von Mises stress of gasket along the radial path towards
bolt F1 are shown in Table 8 to Table 9 for 1.5", 3" and 8" class
150 flanges with IFG gasket. The maximum gasket stress
occurs at outer circle of IFG gasket when full clamp load is
applied at step 5. With the increase of flange size the gasket
stress decreases significantly at inner circle of IFG gasket at
step 5. This is due to that the full clamp load induces rotation of