Computer Assisted Design of Chemically Resistant Ceramic Linings

Abstract For the last 100 years, chemically resistant ceramic linings have been used successfully in process vessels, scrubbers, chimneys and towers exposed to corrosive environments. Because of certain restrictive physical properties of ceramic materials—poor resistance to tensile stresses and a coefficient of thermal expansion only half that of steel—the successful design of early linings was difficult and treated as an art. Beginning about 40 years ago, the development of mathematical analysis of ceramic linings aided the design engineer, and enabled him or her to design stronger and thinner linings. The manual analysis was slow, tedious, and prone to error. For the last 20 years, computers have been used to speed up the process and allow the engineer to analyse possible designs more quickly, more accurately, and using more sophisticated mathematics. Recently, the analysis has been put on line in interactive mode. The designer can then investigate by simulation the consequences of a great many possible designs in a matter of minutes, allowing him to quickly find an optimum design.