An ethylene oxide reactor support plate and its manufacturing process

Abstract

This invention provides a support plate for an ethylene oxide reactor and its manufacturing process, relating to the field of plate processing technology. The support plate includes two semicircular plates, each with a plurality of through holes arranged in an array. The edges of the two semicircular plates share a weld seam for joining them together to form the support plate. The manufacturing process includes the following steps: S1: cutting two workpieces to form two semicircular plates; S2: joining the two semicircular plates to form the support plate; S3: rough machining the joined support plate; S4: finishing the through holes formed on the support plate; S5: machining the outer diameter of the support plate and simultaneously machining the positioning grooves on the support plate; S6: measuring the dimensions of the finished support plate. This application simplifies the support plate processing flow by improving the support plate structure and manufacturing process, significantly reducing manufacturing costs and cycle time.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the field of sheet metal processing technology, and more specifically, to an ethylene oxide reactor support plate and its manufacturing process. Background Technology

[0002] Support plates are key components of vessels such as ethylene oxide reactors and heat exchangers. They are mainly used to fix heat exchange tubes or catalyst beds, prevent vibration, deformation, or displacement, and ensure uniform fluid flow and heat transfer efficiency. Currently, the circular support plates of DOW process ethylene oxide reactors are mostly circular metal plates with a large number of tube holes (arranged according to the heat exchange tube arrangement, such as hexagonal or fan-shaped partitions) and flow openings (small round holes or quincunx holes) to support the tubes and allow gas / liquid to pass through.

[0003] However, the existing technology uses a six-part fan layout, and then splices the fan panels into a whole circle by welding connecting blocks. This manufacturing process is not only complex, with many components and cumbersome manufacturing content, but also involves multiple processes and technical expertise such as material cutting, welding, processing, and assembly. This results in high manufacturing difficulty, difficulty in ensuring manufacturing quality, and increased manufacturing costs and cycle time. Summary of the Invention

[0004] The problem addressed by this invention is how to simplify the manufacturing process of the support plate for an ethylene oxide reactor.

[0005] To address the above problems, this invention provides an ethylene oxide reactor support plate and its manufacturing process.

[0006] In a first aspect, the present invention provides an ethylene oxide reactor support plate, comprising: two semicircular plates for splicing into a complete circular support plate, wherein each of the two semicircular plates is provided with a plurality of tube holes for inserting heat exchange tubes, the plurality of tube holes being arranged in an array on the semicircular plates, and the two semicircular plates forming a joint on their adjacent edges, the joint being a welded joint, for splicing the two semicircular plates into a complete support plate by welding.

[0007] Optionally, both semicircular plates have chamfers of the same size on their adjacent edges. When the two semicircular plates are joined to form the seam, the cross-section of the seam formed by the two chamfers is a V-shaped bevel with the apex facing the interior of the semicircular plate along the thickness direction.

[0008] Optionally, the two semicircular plates are provided with chamfers on the upper and lower sides of the welding position, and when the two semicircular plates are spliced ​​into a complete support plate, there is a gap between the bottom ends of the V-shaped bevel structure of the two splices.

[0009] Optionally, the surface flatness of the support plate formed by splicing the two semicircular plates together is 3mm.

[0010] Optionally, both support plates are provided with a drain trough for collecting and discharging liquid accumulated in the reactor.

[0011] Optionally, the draining groove is connected to the edge of the support plate in the radial direction, and there are multiple draining grooves, which are spaced apart along the circumference of the support plate.

[0012] On the other hand, the present invention provides a manufacturing process for an ethylene oxide reactor support plate, comprising the following steps: S1: Cut two workpieces for joining together to form a support plate and form two semi-circular plates; S2: The two semi-circular plates that have been processed are spliced ​​together to form a complete support plate; S3: Perform rough machining on the pipe holes of the assembled complete support plate for heat exchanger tube installation; S4: Stack multiple support plates and perform precision machining on the tube holes formed on the support plates; S5: The outer circle of the support plate is machined to the required dimensions, and the positioning groove on the support plate is also machined. S6: Dimensionally measure the completed support plate.

[0013] Optionally, the process may further include the following step between step S1 and step S2: S11: The edges on one side of the two semicircular plates used to form the seam are chamfered on both sides to form a V-shaped bevel structure at the seam position after splicing.

[0014] Optionally, the process may further include the following between step S3 and step S4: S31: After the rough machining of the pipe hole of the support plate is completed, the drain groove on the support plate and the tie rod hole for inserting the tie rod to fix and position the support plate are precision machined.

[0015] Optionally, step S4 further includes: Multiple support plates are stacked into a group, and the pipe holes (2) on the support plates in the same group are precision machined and the leakage groove is precision machined to ensure the concentricity and orientation angle of the corresponding pipe holes (2) of the multiple support plates.

[0016] The beneficial effects of the ethylene oxide reactor support plate and its manufacturing process of the present invention are as follows: 1. This invention improves the mechanism of the support plate, reducing the workload when splicing the support plates into a circular plate, thereby greatly improving processing efficiency; 2. Compared with traditional processes, the support plate of this application avoids the use of butt joint blocks during connection, thereby avoiding the accumulation of manufacturing errors in the assembly of seams and improving the dimensional accuracy of the finished product. Attached Figure Description

[0017] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the process flow for an ethylene oxide reactor support plate and its manufacturing process according to the present invention.

[0018] Figure 2 This is an overall view of the support plate for an ethylene oxide reactor and its manufacturing process according to the present invention.

[0019] Figure 3 This is a cross-sectional view of the joint position of the support plate in the ethylene oxide reactor support plate and its manufacturing process according to the present invention.

[0020] Explanation of reference numerals in the attached figures: 1. Semicircular plate; 2. Pipe hole; 3. Joint; 31. Chamfer. Detailed Implementation

[0021] To make the above-mentioned objects, features, and advantages of the present invention more apparent and understandable, specific embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Although some embodiments of the present invention are shown in the drawings, it should be understood that the present invention can be implemented in various forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided to provide a more thorough and complete understanding of the present invention. It should be understood that the accompanying drawings and embodiments of the present invention are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0022] In the attached diagram, the Z-axis represents the vertical direction, i.e., up and down, with the positive direction of the Z-axis representing upward and the negative direction representing downward. The X-axis represents the horizontal direction and is designated as front and back, with the positive direction of the X-axis representing the front and the negative direction representing the back. The Y-axis represents the left and right position, with the positive direction of the Y-axis representing the left and the negative direction representing the right. It should be noted that the aforementioned representations of the Z, Y, and X axes are merely for the convenience of describing the invention and for simplifying the description, and do not indicate or imply that the device or element referred to must have a specific orientation, or be constructed and operated in a specific orientation. Therefore, they should not be construed as limitations on the invention.

[0023] The term "comprising" and its variations as used herein are open-ended, meaning "including but not limited to"; the term "based on" means "at least partially based on"; the term "one embodiment" means "at least one embodiment"; the term "another embodiment" means "at least one additional embodiment"; the term "some embodiments" means "at least some embodiments"; and the term "optionally" means "optional embodiments". Definitions of other terms will be given in the following description. It should be noted that the concepts of "first," "second," etc., mentioned in this invention are used only to distinguish different devices, modules, or units, and are not intended to limit the order of functions performed by these devices, modules, or units or their interdependencies.

[0024] It should be noted that the terms "a" and "a plurality of" used in this invention are illustrative rather than restrictive. Those skilled in the art should understand that, unless otherwise expressly indicated in the context, they should be understood as "one or more".

[0025] Reference Figure 1-3 The purpose of this invention is to provide a support plate for an ethylene oxide reactor and its manufacturing process, so as to solve the problems of difficult overall processing and inconvenient transportation of large support plates, while ensuring that the numerous heat exchange tube mounting holes on the support plate have high positional accuracy and dimensional consistency.

[0026] Firstly, the present invention provides an ethylene oxide reactor support plate, which consists of two semi-circular plates 1 joined together to form a complete circular support plate structure. Both semi-circular plates 1 are perforated with numerous holes 2 for inserting heat exchange tubes, and these holes 2 are arranged in an array on the semi-circular plates 1. By dividing the support plate into two parts, the size and weight of each component are significantly reduced, effectively lowering the manufacturing difficulty and facilitating material preparation, processing, and subsequent in-plant handling and transportation.

[0027] Two semicircular plates 1 form a joint 3 along their adjacent edges, which is a welded joint. By welding, the two independent semicircular plates 1 can be firmly connected into a whole, forming a complete support plate. This solves the problem of the limitations of the integral support plate on the specifications of raw materials and the capabilities of processing equipment, while meeting the needs of large equipment.

[0028] Furthermore, on the edges of the two semicircular plates 1 that are close to each other and form the joint 3, there are chamfers 31 of identical size. When the two semicircular plates 1 are joined together, these two opposing chamfers 31 together define a V-shaped groove, the apex of which points inward along the thickness direction of the semicircular plate 1. This structure forms the groove required for butt welding, providing good penetration conditions for subsequent welding. During welding, the weld metal can fully fill this V-groove, ensuring complete fusion at the weld root and avoiding defects such as incomplete penetration. This allows the strength at the joint 3 to be equal to or even exceed that of the base material, ensuring the structural integrity of the entire support plate under working load. This joint structure also compensates for the insufficient rigidity and susceptibility to cracking in existing support plate splicing fillet weld connections, improving the finished quality of the support plate.

[0029] Furthermore, to strengthen the connection, the aforementioned chamfer 31 is provided on both the upper and lower surfaces of the two semicircular plates 1 at the welding position. As a result, when the two semicircular plates 1 are joined, a V-shaped bevel structure is formed on both the upper and lower surfaces of the joint 3, with a solid metal gap between the bottom ends of the two V-shaped bevel structures. This double-sided bevel design allows welding to be performed from both sides of the support plate. The combined effect of the upper and lower welds not only further enhances the connection strength but also ensures more symmetrical heat input and cooling contraction during the welding process, effectively controlling and offsetting welding deformation. This lays the technological foundation for achieving the high flatness requirements of the final support plate.

[0030] To address the issue of liquid accumulation in the recessed area between the support plate and tube sheet during reactor operation, leading to liquid buildup on the support plate surface, drainage channels are provided on both semicircular plates 1. These accumulated liquids adhere to the support plate surface and are effectively collected and smoothly drained through the drainage channels, preventing corrosion or adverse effects on other process parameters caused by prolonged liquid retention, thus ensuring the long-term stable operation of the reactor. The drainage channels are located on the surface of the support plate and extend radially through its outer edge. Multiple drainage channels are provided, spaced circumferentially. Furthermore, annular drainage channels coaxial with the support plate can be installed, connecting with the radially penetrating channels to form a mesh structure for collecting accumulated liquid. Regardless of the arrangement, effective drainage and collection of liquids in different directions can be achieved.

[0031] Through the combination of the above welding scheme and structural design, the complete support plate formed by the splicing of the two semicircular plates 1 can achieve a very high flatness requirement on its upper surface, which can be controlled within 3mm. For such large-sized welded components, high flatness ensures that all heat exchange tubes are not subjected to additional bending stress when inserted, and makes the fit clearance between the heat exchange tubes and the tube holes 2 uniform. This not only facilitates tube installation but is also crucial for the uniformity of medium flow inside the heat exchanger.

[0032] Secondly, the present invention also provides a process for manufacturing the above-mentioned ethylene oxide reactor support plate, specifically including the following steps.

[0033] Step S1: First, the raw material is cut into two semi-circular workpieces, namely semi-circular plate 1, which will be used to assemble a complete support plate. This method of cutting the material into parts first has a higher material utilization rate and lower requirements for the specifications of the cutting equipment compared to cutting the material as a whole.

[0034] Between steps S1 and S2, step S11 can be performed: chamfering 31 is applied to the side edges of the two semicircular plates 1 that form the seam 3. This will naturally create the aforementioned double-sided V-shaped bevel structure at the seam 3 during subsequent splicing. Performing the chamfering 31 process before splicing simplifies the operation and ensures higher precision.

[0035] Step S2: The two precision-machined semi-circular plates 1 are spliced ​​together according to preset requirements to prepare for subsequent welding to form a complete circular support plate.

[0036] Step S3: Rough machining of the pipe holes 2 is performed on the assembled complete support plate. At this point, the support plate is a single unit, and all pipe holes 2 are rough machined simultaneously to initially establish the relative positional relationship between the holes.

[0037] Between steps S3 and S4, including step S31, after the rough machining of the pipe hole 2 is completed, the drain groove on the support plate and the tie rod hole for inserting the tie rod to fix and position the support plate are precision machined. This arrangement allows these features that have precise mating relationships with other components to be machined after the main structure is finalized, which can better ensure the final assembly relationship.

[0038] Step S4 involves stacking multiple support plates that have undergone the aforementioned steps and then performing precision machining on all the pipe holes 2 on the support plates. Stacking multiple support plates in the same group allows for simultaneous machining of the pipe holes 2 and the leakage channels on the entire stack of support plates; a single cut can penetrate multiple layers of plates. This machining method ensures a high degree of concentricity and consistent orientation of all corresponding pipe holes 2 on several support plates in the same group, eliminating accumulated errors caused by segmented or multi-stage machining. Therefore, during final assembly of the equipment, the heat exchange tubes can pass through all support plates smoothly in one go, significantly reducing assembly difficulty and internal stress introduced by forced assembly.

[0039] Step S5 involves performing final dimensional machining on the outer circle of the support plate after the finishing of the pipe hole 2, and simultaneously machining the positioning groove on the support plate. This ensures the fitting accuracy between the outer circle of the support plate and the equipment shell, and enables precise positioning of the support plate inside the reactor through the positioning groove.

[0040] Step S6: Perform comprehensive dimensional measurements on the support plate that has completed all processing steps, and inspect key indicators such as flatness, diameter and position of the tube hole 2, and outer circle dimensions.

[0041] The structural principle of the solution provided by this invention lies in the innovative design of a large-sized integrated support plate as a welded structure of two semi-circular plates 1. Double-sided chamfers 31 are set at the joint edges of the semi-circular plates 1 to form two upper and lower V-shaped bevels, achieving double-sided welding. This structure not only halves the workpiece size, solving manufacturing and transportation bottlenecks, but also provides excellent bending and shear resistance to the welded area through the symmetrical weld structure on both sides and the solid interval between them, effectively controlling welding deformation and providing structural assurance for achieving the high flatness of the final support plate. Simultaneously, the integrated leakage channel array solves the problem of liquid accumulation during actual process operation.

[0042] The manufacturing principle of the ethylene oxide reactor support plate and its manufacturing process provided by this invention is as follows: The process adopts a "separate molding, then welding together, and finally stacking and precision machining" approach. First, the complex large components are broken down into simpler, easier-to-machine parts, which are then restored to a whole through high-quality welding with double-sided V-shaped bevels. Then, multiple support plates from the same reactor are creatively stacked, and all critical pipe holes 2 and leakage channels are precision machined in a single, continuous process. This fundamentally ensures the high degree of uniformity of coordinates among the thousands of pipe holes 2 across the multiple support plates, perfectly meeting the stringent requirements of the heat exchanger for the precision of the heat exchange tube clearance and position.

[0043] While the present invention has been disclosed above, its scope of protection is not limited thereto. Those skilled in the art can make various changes and modifications without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention, and all such changes and modifications will fall within the scope of protection of the present invention.

Claims

1. A support plate for an ethylene oxide reactor, characterized in that, include: Two semicircular plates (1) are used to splice into a complete circular support plate. Both semicircular plates (1) are provided with a number of tube holes (2) for inserting heat exchange tubes. The number of tube holes (2) are arranged in an array on the semicircular plates (1). The two semicircular plates (1) are joined together at their adjacent edges to form a joint (3). The joint (3) is a welded joint, which is used to splice the two semicircular plates (1) into a complete support plate by welding.

2. The ethylene oxide reactor support plate according to claim 1, characterized in that, Both of the two semicircular plates (1) have chamfers (31) of the same size on their adjacent edges. When the two semicircular plates (1) are spliced ​​together to form the joint (3), the cross-section of the joint (3) formed by the two chamfers (31) is a V-shaped bevel with the vertex facing the interior of the semicircular plate (1) along the thickness direction.

3. The ethylene oxide reactor support plate according to claim 2, characterized in that, Both of the two semicircular plates (1) have chamfers (31) on the upper and lower sides of the welding position, and when the two semicircular plates (1) are spliced ​​into a complete support plate, there is a gap between the bottom ends of the V-shaped bevel structure of the two splices (3).

4. The ethylene oxide reactor support plate according to claim 1, characterized in that, The surface flatness of the support plate formed by splicing the two semicircular plates (1) is 3mm.

5. The ethylene oxide reactor support plate according to claim 1, characterized in that, Both support plates are provided with a drain trough for collecting and draining the liquid accumulated in the reactor.

6. The ethylene oxide reactor support plate and its manufacturing process according to claim 5, characterized in that, The leakage groove is connected to the edge of the support plate in the radial direction. There are multiple leakage grooves, and the multiple leakage grooves are distributed at intervals along the circumference of the support plate.

7. A manufacturing process for an ethylene oxide reactor support plate applicable to any one of claims 1-6, characterized in that, Includes the following steps: S1: Cut two workpieces for joint splicing into a support plate and form two semi-circular plates (1). S2: The two semi-circular plates (1) that have been processed are spliced ​​together to form a complete support plate; S3: Perform rough machining on the complete support plate assembled together for the installation of the heat exchange tubes, specifically the tube holes (2); S4: Perform finishing on the tube hole (2) formed on the support plate; S5: The outer circle of the support plate is machined to the required dimensions, and the positioning groove on the support plate is also machined. S6: Dimensionally measure the completed support plate.

8. The manufacturing process of an ethylene oxide reactor support plate according to claim 7, characterized in that, Between step S1 and step S2, the following is also included: S11: The edges on one side of the two semicircular plates (1) used to form the joint (3) are chamfered (31) on both sides to form a V-shaped bevel structure at the joint (3) after splicing.

9. The manufacturing process of an ethylene oxide reactor support plate according to claim 7, characterized in that, Between step S3 and step S4, the following is also included: S31: After the rough machining of the pipe hole (2) of the support plate is completed, the drain groove on the support plate and the tie rod hole for inserting the tie rod to fix and position the support plate are finely machined.

10. The manufacturing process of an ethylene oxide reactor support plate according to claim 9, characterized in that, Step S3 specifically includes: stacking multiple support plates into a group, and performing precision machining on the pipe holes (2) on the support plates in the same group; Step S31 specifically includes: performing precision machining on the leakage grooves on the support plates in the same group.

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