Support

Lug support can be easily fabricated from plate and attached to the vessel wall
with minium welding length. They are made to rest on short columns or on
beams of a structure depending on the elevation required. They can be easily
levelled. Due to the eccentricity of these supports and the resulting bending
moment, compressive, tensile and shear stresses are induced in the vessel wall.
These stresses must be combined with circumferential and longitudinal stresses
produced in the vessel wall due to operating pressure. The shear stresses being
of a small magnitude can be ignored.
Bracket support are most suitable for vessels with thick walls as these are
capable of absorbing the bending stresses due to eccentricity of loads. In vessels
with thin walls, it is necessary either to reinforce certain area of the vessel wall
where the bracket is attached or to use many brackets. In case a pad is used it is
welded to the shell. The bracket is then welded to the pad. The thickness of the
pad is usually made equal to or greater than the thickness of the shell with a
minimum thickness of 6mm. It is usual to provide 2 brackets for vessels upto
600mm diameter, 4 brackets for vessels upto 3 meter diameter, 6 brackets for
vessels upto 5 meter diameter and 8 brackets for vessels above 5 meter
diameter.
The main loads on the bracket support are the dead weight of the vessel with its
contents and the wind load. The wind load tends to overturn the vessel,
particularly when it is empty. The maximum compressive stresses in the supports
occure on the leeward side when the vessel is full, since dead load and wind load
have a similar effect. The maximum tensile stresses are set up on the wind side
when the vessel is empty, since dead load and wind load have opposing effects.
Therefore the stresses on the leeward side are the determining factor for design
of supports. The maximum total compressive load in the most remote support is

Wind load is neglected if the vessels is indoor or if the height of the vessel is
limited. The load P would then be only due to the weight of the vessel and its
contents,

Two types of brackets are generally used.

One type consists of two vertical gusset plates, with two addition horizontal plate
stiffeners. All the plates are welded to the pressure vessel shell. Both the top and
bottom stiffener plates are continuously welded to the shell, as the maximum
compressive and tensile stress occurs in these two plates, respectively. The
gussets plates are welded intermittently. All the welds are under a shearing load.
The compression load P induces a reaction in the pressure vessel wall a round
the bracket. The bending moment created is given by.

a) In addition to the axial stress produced by the internal pressure. A

reinforcing pad is welded to the shell to take care of these additional
stresses if they are of large magnitude.
b) In the second case only the vertical gusset plates are welded to the shell.
The bottom plate is not welded. The method of calculating moments and
stresses for this type of construction is complex and is therefore not
considered here.

Thickness of the base plate

The plate is fixed on the edges with the load P considered as distributed over
about half the area of the plate.

Since in this case the load is only distributed on the surface of contact between
the base plate and the supporting beam the actual stress may be taken as 40%
more.
Columns are attached under the brackets. Hence the load on the column is not
concentric with the weight of the vessel and its contents. These loading
conditions act to produce an axial compression as well as bending due to
eccentricity.

Column supports in steel are designed for slenderness ratio upto 120.
Compressive stresses can be determined either on the basis of struts under
direct compression or on the basis of the Rankine-Gordon formula, depending on
the slenderness ratio.
If the load P is acting eccentric on a short column, the maximum combined
bending and direct stress is given by

Stress due to wind load should be combined with the stress due to dead loads.

In designing the size of an appropriate column it is usual to choose a structure

section such as a joist, a channel or a T section