I have a question about the ASME B73.1 pump allowable loads. This is my first experiance with this type of pump which is strange after 32 years as a Stress Engineer that I haven't run across them before in oil and gas industry.

1) Does version 5 have an option for the calculation of the nozzle loads for compliance to ASME B73.1 pumps.
2) Has anyone any experience with these pumps on an FPSO design.

We requested 3 times API 610 at he start of the job and were beaten down to 2 times API. Now they are coming up with pumps to ASME B73.1 which I am told by the suppliers are not even to 1 times API.

With the profits the oil industry is making at the moment they are still trying to cut cost on equipment which has to last 20 years offshore.

CAESAR II does not have an option to evaluate B73.1 pumps.

i've used them.

They are a process pump and are not really suited to utillities.
certainly not fpso

Hello all,

A really interesting subject to me.

Does anyone have any references in which the API pumps are compared directly to the ASME B73.1 pumps? I would like to see something that comes from some "authority" - some really credible comparison.

I have been hearing this debate for years and I do not have a "final word" on which pumps are the most robust. I was recently told by a very respected power plant design firm that they always specify the ASME pumps for power plants because they match up better with the more conservative B31.1 Power Piping Code. I asked for the source of their opinion but they changed the subject. That seems to be the way it always is.

It would be nice to sent this one to Myth Busters.

Regards, John.

Bill,
Are you looking for a copy of the B73.1 Code method ? If so it's in PIP RESP002, available on the web I think.

John,
I don't think a direct comparison API 610 to ASME B73.1 would be a simple job. Commonly we quote specific API 610 2x Table 4 loads and ignore Appendix F, making life simple. The ASME B73.1 method looks depressingly similar to NEMA SM-23, so a comparison might need many sets of test values to App. F, unless some serious juggling of equations were undertaken.

Yes, I understand the complexity of this comparison. Ever the optimist, I hoped that with the wide broadcast to the world that this forum enjoys, my plea might "shake something out of the trees" in the way of published summaries.

Some years (and many Jack Daniels) ago I cobbled together a couple of spreadsheets to do the ASME calcs and the API Appendix F calcs but alas those reside upon some long dead and misplaced laptop. My search for truth and beauty continues from Mazeikiai, Lithuania.