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Introduction:
Spring hangers are an integrated part of Piping Industry. The use of spring hangers for supporting
pipe weights are welknown to every piping engineer. Whenever some rigid supports are not taking
load due to its thermal movement or rigid supports are creating bad effect to equipment connection
Piping engineers suggest the use of a spring hanger to share some of the loads and to keep the
piping system safe. Selection of the appropriate type of hanger support for any given application is
governed by the individual piping configuration and job requirements. There are two types of Spring
hangers. a) Variable Spring Hanger- Loads vary throughout its operating range and b) Constant
Spring hanger: Load remains constant throughout its operating range.
The following write up will provide a simple guideline for selection of both Variable and constant
Spring hanger while analysing a piping system using Caesar II.
1.Determine the hot load required and the pipe movement (up or down).
2.Estimate the travel range from the catalogue.
3.Select the smallest spring size which has the hot load within the working travel (mid range).
4.Ensure that the cold load lies within the working range of the spring i.e. between the two dark black
lines shown in the selection chart.
Calculate the cold load as follows:
Cold Load = Operating Load + Movement x Spring Rate (For pipe movement up)
Cold Load = Operating Load Movement x Spring Rate (For pipe movement down)
5. If the Cold load lies beyond the working range in the selection chart, then select higher spring
size or the next travel range.
6. Check the variability in selected spring
Generally for non critical systems, the variability is limited to 25% through out the total travel. For
critical systems such as steam connections terminating at turbines and pipes connected to rotating
equipment
Like compressor etc. variability is limited to 10%.If the variation exceeds the allowed value, choose
higher size spring or smaller spring rate at same load range.
7.Select the type and check the feasibility of the spring depending on space available and type of
structure available.
For can type springs the spring height should be kept minimum from stability point of view. If
spring height is less the moment on spring will reduce and tilting of spring (Fig. 5) can be
avoided or significantly minimized.
The spring which has lower spring rate will have lower load variation.
While designing the spring hanger the sustained sagging should be minimized within +/-1
mm so that original piping system is not strained much.
Fig. 5 Effect of Spring Height