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4.1.

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.

4.1.1. Analysis of Material Performance Requirements


Narrowing down of construction material for the reactor vessel, fittings, and piping systems are done together
since the plant components are subjected to same service conditions. The material of construction should be able to
support the total load of the reactor and allow the reaction to proceed with no material failure at the specified operating
conditions meet the demands of the design. The material for the piping systems and fitting around the reactor should
also meet the operating conditions shown in the table below. The packed bed reactor is filled with a solid spherical
catalyst alkali KOH impregnated in ZnO.

Table X. Transesterification reactor operating conditions


Operating Conditions Value

Volume (m3) 20.348

Load (Mass catalyst+ Feed stream per hour) (kg) 20 192.71

Temperature (C) 60

Pressure (MPa) 0.128

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.

4.1.2. Initial Screening


Common materials used in the chemical plant industries are stainless steel, nickel alloys, Monel, aluminum alloys,
titanium and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) according to descriptions by Towler & Sinnot (2013). The table below shows
the maximum service temperature for these classes.

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.

4.1.3. Comparing Alternative Solutions


Digital logic method will be used to compare the possible representative materials from the material classes.
Each property will be compared to a pair, 1 will be given to the property that is more important compared the other. For
each property, a number of 1 values will be added and considered as the "number of positive decisions". The evaluation
of each comparison is tabulated in Table X1. An emphasis coefficient a, weight factor, will then be calculated for each
property by getting the quotient of the positive decision and total positive decision. The values of "number of positive
decision" and emphasis coefficient are also tabulated.
Table 25. Comparing Material Property by Positive Decision and Emphasis Coefficient
Number of positive decisions Total positive Emphasis
Property
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 decision Coefficient,
Young's modulus 1 0 0 1 2 0.2
Yield Strength 0 1 1 1 3 0.3
Corrosion
1 0 1 0 2 0.2
resistance
Density 1 0 0 0 1 0.1
Cost 0 0 1 1 2 0.2
10 = 1.0

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

Table 3. Scaled Values of the properties and Performance Index


Scaled
Scaled Yield Scaled Scaled
Young's Scaled Performance
Material strength Corrosion Relative
Modulus Density Index
(psi) Resistance Cost
(GPa)
Austenitic: SS 201 100 32 100 57 83 72.05
Austenitic: SS 304 89 100 100 57 100 93.51
Austenitic: SS 316 89 21 100 56 53 60.35
Ferritic: 430 92 21 100 58 81 66.78
Inconel 600 95 21 80 53 15 49.50
Incoloy 800 95 29 80 56 27 54.90
Alpha Ti alloy 45 81 60 100 36 62.38

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.

4.1.4. Optimum Solution


The stainless steels are the most frequently used corrosion resistant materials in the chemical industry (Towler
& Sinnott, 2013). The optimum solution selected for construction of the piping system and reactor vessel is the
Austenitic 304 Stainless Steel. Type 304 serves a wide range of applications. It withstands ordinary rusting in
architecture, it is resistant to food-processing environments and is widely used in chemical industries as a reactor
(Nickel Development Institute, 2014).

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