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Piping Support Systems for Process Plants 241

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TRAVEL
INCHES

Typical travel scale

Figure 5-2. Travel scale that is mounted on spring supports.

of the pipe. Thus, the hot load on the spring hanger from the computer
analysis is 1459 lb. We refer to Table 5-1 and see that a Size 11 spring is
required, as 1627 lb is about midway down the spring load scale. Because
the movement is 0.247 in., we can use a Fig. 82 spring—a single spring.
As shown in Table 5-1, there is a movement of 0.247 in. from 1627 lb
to 1459 lb (also, (1627–1459)/680  0.247 in.). With a spring constant of
680 lb/in., the spring has a variation of 0.247 in.  (680) lb/in.  167.96 lb.
The spring variation, expressed as a percentage, is 167.96/1459  100 
11.51%  25%. The accepted rule is to limit the variability to 25% for
critical systems in process plants. In some applications, the use of an
upper limit of variability is 10% for very critical piping systems. This is
rather uncommon in most situations in the process industries. Variability
is defined as the absolute value of the hot load minus the cold load divided
by the hot load times 100 to give the percent of variability. One wants to
limit the variability. The reason for this is that a considerable amount of
supporting force change would occur if a variable spring was used when
the variability exceeded 25%. When this 25% variability rule can’t be met,
then a constant spring needs to be considered. Some computer programs
that use piping flexibility (pipe stress) software allow the user to specify
the 25% limit for variable springs.
The next step one would take would be to refer to the spring manufac-
turer’s catalog to obtain the physical dimensions of the spring. Note that it
is good practice to select a hanger—both variable and constant— having a
total travel rating somewhat larger than that which is expected. In those
cases where travel cannot be accurately calculated, a more generous over