Dear members

as well known, rigidity calculation is now officially mandatory for ASME VIII- DIV. 1 and this force designers to often increase thickness of flanges in order to ensure proper tightness.
There is an option in flange dialog of PVELITE 2008 ed. to disable rigidity check, so questions are:

1) in case vessel is not required to have a code stamp, is designer allowed to waive ASME appendix 2-14 in calculation of flanges ?

2) code case 2547 was supposed to work until April of 2008. Is still this code case valid, in order to get chance of restricting flanges fabrication costs ?
Did ASME approve again a code case that allows users to waive par. 2-14 for 18 months and to verify elseway flange flexibility ?

Thank you.

S. Bravi

(Rome - Italy)

Dear Stefano,

As I understand this, if the vessel is not required to be stamped then you can employ any method that will give you a safe and reliable flange design.

You should periodically recieve ASME Code Case supplements. Please check in the Code Case Appendix to see if the Case has been annulled. To the best of my knowledge as of Supplement 6 (June 20th, 2008), this Code Case has not been annulled.