Final theses topics in our group can be divided into 3 categories:

1. Equipment design according to legislation and standards
2. Analyses of equipment damage
3. Software development

A) Equipment design according to legislation and standards

This category is suitable for practically oriented students, who would like to work in the area of equipment design. Assignment of the thesis includes basic dimensions, eventually also materials and the students task is to estimate remaining dimensions according to requirements from relevant standards. Procedure involves calculations using formulas, detail design choices and usually also verification of the final design using finite element method. Basic design drawings are also usually required.

List of equipment:

• Pressure vessels (EN 13445, ASME BPVC, TEMA)
  • Shell and tube heat exchangers
  • Adsorbers
  • Distillation columns
• Pressure piping (EN 13480)
• Boilers (EN 12952/3)
• Storage tanks (EN 1993–4–2)
• Transport containers (ISO 1496)

B) Analyses of equipment damage

Unexpected damage of process equipment is a common occurrence in industrial practise. For finding effective solution, it is essential to identify cause and mechanism of the damage and only then, the right corrective measures may be suggested. Solution often involves finite element analyses (FEA) that simulate stresses and deformations of the equipment and those may confirm or exclude stress or strain related damage. FEA is especially important in cases of damage occurring despite the equipment being designed according to standards. Conducing finite element analyses correctly is time-consuming, therefore this thesis category is recommended mainly but not exclusively for master programme students.

C) Software development

Nowadays, designers work can hardly ever be conducted without use of specialised software tools. Engineering involves a lot of tedious repetitive tasks that may be automatised, thus saving time in future. Software development can be therefore vied as an investment into future. Also, the developer must thoroughly understand the procedure that he or she is trying to automatise, so that the correct use of the software would not yield erroneous results.

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Final Theses

Topic offers for final theses that are in our area of interest are welcome.
More information here.

Research and development

Our R&D reflects requirements from industry. We develop methods for automatised equipment evaluation according to relevant standards and new design solutions. Results of our work are presented at international conferences and published in prestigious journals.
More information here.

Commercial orders

• root cause analyses includind of corective measures
• design and check calculations of equipment
• estimation of remaining equipment lifetime
• strength optimisation of design
• development of new design solutions

Available software

We use commercial software such as ANSYS, Solidworks a Sant’Ambrogio, as well as freely available software such as FreeCAD or Salome Meca. We are also using a lot of scripting. For automatising some of methods (usually from standards), we use scripts and in-house software written in Python programming language.

References:

• MERO ČR a.s.
• Momentive/Hexion
• Česká rafinérská
• CHEMPEX-HTE a.s.
• KHT s.r.o.
• DEZA
• Tenza
• ČEPRO
• ORGREZ
• Doosan Škoda Power
• Unipetrol
• Královopolská RIA a.s.
• Královopolská SAG s.r.o.
• KUNST
• EVECO Brno

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Our r&d activities are focused on structural design of equipment, design check calculations as well as estimation of equipment lifetime and development of new design solutions.

Design and verification of equipment

Aside from functionality, there are also other important equipment design requirements such as cost-effective manufacture and operation, as well as safety requirements. Currently, we are mainly focused on these areas:

• damage of tube bundles caused by flow induced vibration
• optimisation of cylindrical shells stiffening (according to EN 13445 or EN 1993–1–6)
• software for pressure vessel design verification according to EN 13445

Remaining lifetime estimation

During design phase, it is virtually impossible to precisely estimate remaining lifetime of the equipment, because design calculations consider only representative values of material characteristics, geometry parameters and operation conditions. Design calculations usually use many conservative simplifications. Therefore, it is usually necessary to conduct inspections and estimations of remaining lifetime of the equipment or its components in the course of its life for the safety to be ensured. Knowledge of current remaining lifetime is paramount in deciding about repairs and replacements of components as well as in planning further inspections. Ideally, operator is rewarded by safe and cost-effective operation of the equipment that may be prolonged compared to design life.

Remaining lifetime is affected by various degradation mechanisms. Currently, we are developing software that predicts damage caused by fatigue and creep as well as formation of and damage of or caused by oxide scales.

Softwares that we use

Software plays crucial role in our research. Finite element simulation software is essential:

• ANSYS
  • Workbench
  • Mechanical APDL (including APDL scripting)
• SALOME

For the purpose of automatising calculations, data visualisations and in-house software development, we use Python programming language and its libraries::

• Matplotlib
• wxPython
• PythonOCC

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