Hi,

I have a project in which I had to model the vessel and the piping both in caesar and connect the 2 with nozzles. Apparently gusset plates were installed after the nozzles were attached to the vessel and provide a semi-stiff anchor support that moves with the vessel and attaches to just before the nozzle flange. This gives the nozzle extra support. My question is this: If my nozzles extend from the vessel about 30 inches and modeling the nozzle in Caesar provides a flex anchor connection, how would I model the anchor at the same point? do I need to? Is this overkill? I have attached links to pictures of what I'm talking about below.
model picture

Here is link to the other picture of the gusset

http://bp3.blogger.com/_2oWdZC6GMIM/SH9PJ9WDtUI/AAAAAAAAAUs/KbJt4d1dons/s1600-h/gusset.JPG
Gusset pic

As has been noted many times in this forum, CAESAR II is NOT a proper vehicle for developing local stresses and local stiffnesses. Some of the nozzle modules can help, but I doubt that your specific geometry is within the purview of any of them. This means that any real analysis of this nozzle must be done using the FEA software of choice in your firm. Hand calculation may be possible, check our WRC-448 for a lot of guidance.

The best you can do with this configuration is to model "displacments" at the flange of the nozzle. This will be conservative from a "piping load" point of view. If you get stiffnesses from FEA software, then you can add these to the model to refine the loads.