A. Introduction

Pressure vessel and heat exchanger mechanical design is one of the last areas of human endeavour that is not totally reliant on computers for the design process. There are many reasons for retaining human involvement. For any particular type of pressure vessel or heat exchanger there are often subtle differences in design detail offered by different manufacturers or required by end users. Particular components are analysed using different design methods for different codes; the multitude of dimensional proportions may exclude a particular design possibility. Standardisation is notably lacking from pressure vessel and heat exchanger geometry, this is what makes pressurised equipment design the interesting and demanding subject that it is.

The benefits from using computers in the design process are many. Increased speed over manual calculation time is the obvious benefit. Less obvious is the ability to perform what if calculations, thus enabling the engineer to further refine the design.

It is difficult to say how much one should pay for pressurised equipment software, however the old adage "you get what you pay for" is as good a yardstick as any. There are certainly bargain basement prices to be had and these may well suffice for the student engineer, but do not usually provide the levels of technical support. QC and QA being demanded by industry.

There are various types of pressurised equipment software packages available, ranging from simple spreadsheets, automated design and drafting packages for predefined equipment types or modular design/assessment software. It is not the purpose of this chapter to review these differences but to consider the quality aspects of pressurised equipment design applications.