It is a type of accessory that drills a hole slightly larger than the outer diameter of the pipe on a circular steel plate, and welds and fixes the pipe to achieve this purpose.
Tube plates are widely used in industries such as tubular heat exchangers, boilers, pressure vessels, steam turbines, and large air conditioners.
Tube plates are mainly used in chemical containers, such as tubular heat exchangers, pressure vessels, boilers, condensers, air conditioners, evaporators, and seawater desalination, to support and fix the tubes. The metal material not only provides rigidity, but also has great thermal conductivity.
When calculating the axial stress of the shell, the axial stress of the heat exchange tube, and the pull-out force q between the heat exchange tube and the tube sheet under various working conditions with temperature differences in the fixed tube sheet, if one of them cannot meet the strength (or stability) condition, an expansion joint needs to be installed. In the strength verification calculation of fixed tube sheets, when the thickness of the tube sheet is determined and expansion joints are not installed, sometimes the strength of the tube sheet is insufficient. After the expansion joints are installed, the thickness of the tube sheet may meet the requirements. At this point, expansion joints can also be installed to thin the tube sheet, but it depends on a comprehensive evaluation of material consumption, manufacturing difficulty, and economic benefits.
The commonly used type of fixed tube plate heat exchanger is the U-shaped expansion joint, which has the advantages of compact and simple structure, good compensation, and low price.
The accuracy of tube plate processing, especially the spacing between tube holes and diameter tolerances, perpendicularity, and smoothness, greatly affect the assembly and performance of the listed chemical equipment. With the increasing size of chemical equipment and power plants, the diameter of their tube plates has also become larger, and tube plates with a diameter of 4m-5m are very common. The characteristics of large tube sheets are a large number of tube holes, high density, small aperture, deep depth, and high requirements for precision and smoothness.