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Material Selection
A selection is made to find a suitable material that will economically fulfill the process and mechanical requirements
for the reactor vessel of the adiabatic reactor, fittings and piping systems. In the selection process, the characteristics
and general behavior of the material is considered, so that, it matches the characteristics of the system and design
requirements. To do so, the selection process objectives are to analyze material performance requirement, propose
materials of construction (initial screening), screen and rank viable candidates (comparing alternative solutions), and
select material with a property-profile that could meet the design requirement.
The material performance requirements can be divided into five categories: (1) functional requirements, (2)
resistance to service conditions, (3) processability requirements, (4) reliability requirements, and (5) cost (Kutz, 2001).
These five categories are considered during the whole selection process. The initial screening will start with listing all
common materials used in the chemical industry and narrowing them down based on the critical requirements by
eliminating materials which could not meet the rigid requirement. Other requirements, beside the rigid requirement, are
given weights in the next selection process step. During this step, comparing alternative solutions, candidate materials
that passed the initial screening are compared using the digital logic method. From these candidate materials, an
optimum solution that would meet the necessary requirements of the material will be chosen.
Temperature (C) 60
The esterification reactor operates at 220 C, in case of cooling system and safety control failure the fluid
entering the transesterification reactor will have this temperature. High temperature may induce material creep which
limits the ability of the material to carry the load, material chosen should have high maximum service temperature to
resist this material failure. This is considered as the rigid requirement of the material selection.
Any deformation and fracture due to stress from the load will be resisted by yield strength (Askeland, Fulay,
& Wright, 2012). The stiffness of the material is also important, thus, high young's modulus is also considered. These
two are the functional requirements considered in the selection process. Processability requirement will mainly be the
lightness of the material or density. The material should also be resistant to corrosion since the reactor is subjected to
an alkali catalyst and fluid. In addition to these requirements, it is also necessary that the material should be low cost
since this factor affects the economy of the design.
Table 1. Material class and ranges of maximum service temperature (Ashby & Jones, 2012)
Material Maximum Service Temperature, Tmax C
Stainless Steel (Cr > 12%) 800-1050
Nickel Alloy 300-1000
Monel 200-600
Aluminum alloy 120-200
Titanium 300-700
PVC 50-80
Out of all the six choices only stainless steel, nickel alloy and titanium alloy is considered superior due to its high
maximum service temperature value. PVC, Monel, and aluminum alloy are directly eliminated due to its low lower limit
maximum service temperature that could not meet the requirements for Tmax. Viable candidates for stainless steel,
nickel alloy, and titanium alloy will be considered and subjected to another screening.
From the table above, the yield strength of the material is the most important. Followed by youngs modulus,
corrosion resistance, and cost. The properties of the candidate materials are listed in the table below.
Table 2. Properties of the candidate materials and relative cost values (Askeland, Fulay, & Wright, 2012)
Young's
Yield strength Corrosion
Material Modulus Density Relative Costb
(psi) Resistancea
(GPa)
Stainless Steel
(Cr > 12%)
Austenitic: SS 201
200 45 000 5 7800 1.2
17% Cr- 0.15% C-5% Ni
Austenitic: SS 304
178 140 000 5 7850 1
19% Cr- 0.08% C-10% Ni
Austenitic: SS 316
17% Cr- 0.08% C-12% 178 30 000 5 8000 1.9
Ni-2.5 Mo%
Ferritic: SS 430
184 30 000 5 7700 1.24
0.12% C -17% Cr
Nickel Alloy
Inconel 600 (Ni-15.5%Cr-
190 29 000 4 8430 6.73
8%Fe)
Incoloy 800 (Ni-46% Fe-
190 41 000 4 7950 3.65
21%Cr)
Titanium Alloy
Alpha Ti alloy
90 113 000 3 4480 2.79
5% Al-2.5% Sn
aExcellent (5), Very Good (4), Good (3), Fair (2), Poor (1)
bRelative cost values are based from (Steel Tank Institute & Steel Plate Fabricators Association, 2012)
Youngs modulus, yield strength, and density values are obtained from the book The science and engineering
of Materials by Askeland, Fulay, & Wright (2012). The material with the highest youngs modulus is the Stainless Steel
201 while 304 has the highest yield strength which can be attributed to carbon an nitrogen composition of steels. The
table relative costs are obtained from values determined by Steel Tank Institute & Steel Plate Fabricators Association
(2012) wherein the base value is the cost of stainless steel 304 (Php). Commented [MAC1]: Price in php on what year
Corrosion resistances of each candidate are based from the book Materials and Process Selection for
Engineering Design (Farag, 2007). In the book, these materials were rated A to E for corrosion resistance, wherein A
is rated as excellent and E is poor. The stainless steels are the most frequently used corrosion resistant materials in
the chemical industry. Corrosion and oxidation resistance of the stainless steels are attributed to the high chromium
and nickel content.
The highest performance index will prove to be the best or optimum material. It is calculated using the
equation below where is the emphasis coefficient and is the scaling factor.
= Equation 10
To compare these materials, the scaling factor will be determined using the equations below. For properties
that should have high values such as yield strength, youngs modulus and corrosion resistance:
= 100 Equation 8
For properties that should have low values such as density and relative cost:
= 100 Equation 9
From the table above, the austenitic stainless steel 304 has the highest performance index followed by
stainless steel 201. This proves that stainless steels are superior to other metals in the criteria given.