Your cart is empty.
Keep shopping
Piping Stress Analysis & Flexibility: ASME B31.3 Design
Hot & New
New
15 students
Piping Stress Analysis & Flexibility: ASME B31.3 Design
Stress equations, expansion loops, load cases, nozzle loads to API 610 & WRC — software-independent engineering approach
Last updated 8/2026
English
What you'll learn
- Work the ASME B31.3 sustained, expansion and occasional stress equations, including the allowable stress range and liberal allowance
- Assess equipment nozzle loads against API 610, API 617, API 661, NEMA SM23 and WRC 107/297 — the limits that usually govern the design
- Build a complete load case matrix covering operating, sustained, expansion, occasional and hydrotest conditions
- Design flexibility into a system — expansion loops, offsets and direction changes — and calculate free thermal growth correctly
- Distinguish primary from secondary stress and explain why the code treats displacement-controlled loading differently
- Analyse occasional loads — wind, seismic, slug flow, relief valve reaction and water hammer
- Handle special systems: expansion joints and pressure thrust, buried piping and soil restraint, jacketed, cryogenic and creep-range piping
- Model correctly — node placement, model extent, branch and reducer treatment — and recognise the errors that hide real overstress
- Extract support loads, movements and friction effects for structural design and support detailing
- Produce and defend a stress analysis report, with assumptions documented and ready for independent review
Explore related topics
Course content
6 sections • 20 lectures • 4h 13m total length
Requirements
- No prior stress analysis experience is required — the theory is built from first principles
- Any engineering or technical background is enough to follow the course
- Comfortable with basic algebra — every method is worked step by step, so no advanced mathematics is needed
- Helpful but not essential: some familiarity with piping isometrics or ASME B31.3
- No software or licence needed — this course teaches the engineering, not a specific package, so it applies to Caesar II, AutoPIPE, Start-Prof or any other
Description
A piping system that passes hydrotest can still tear a pump nozzle off six months into operation. Thermal growth does not care that the geometry was correct on the isometric.
Piping stress analysis is the discipline that prevents that — and it is one of the few engineering skills where the consequence of getting it wrong shows up as a leak, an outage or an injury rather than a rework note. It is also where most piping engineers stop, because the subject is usually taught as software training rather than engineering.
This course teaches the engineering.
WHAT YOU WILL MASTER
Five sections cover the code basis and stress categories, flexibility and load case construction, equipment nozzle loads, special systems and components, and the workflow that turns an analysis into a design deliverable.
You will learn why the code treats primary and secondary stress differently and what that means for how you design. You will work the ASME B31.3 sustained, expansion and occasional stress equations, including the allowable stress range and the liberal allowance. You will build a load case matrix for start-up, shutdown, upset and hydrotest. You will calculate free thermal growth, design expansion loops, and understand exactly why cold spring earns so little credit.
THE PART THAT ACTUALLY GOVERNS: NOZZLE LOADS
An entire section covers equipment allowables, because in practice they decide the design. API 610 pump nozzle tables, API 617 and 661, NEMA SM23 for turbines, WRC 107 and 297 local stress at vessel nozzles, and API 650 Appendix P for tank connections with shell rotation and settlement. This is the material that separates an engineer who can run software from one who can solve the problem.
SOFTWARE-INDEPENDENT BY DESIGN
This is not a Caesar II, AutoPIPE or Start-Prof tutorial. It teaches what those programs are solving — the stiffness matrix approach, how boundary conditions are represented, and which built-in assumptions need challenging — so the knowledge transfers to whatever package your employer has licensed, and so you can tell when an output is wrong.
WHO THIS IS FOR
Piping and mechanical engineers moving into stress analysis; stress engineers who learned the software but not the theory; project and EPC engineers reviewing stress reports; design engineers who need to lay out systems that will pass analysis first time; and rotating equipment engineers dealing with nozzle load disputes.
WHAT YOU GET
Structured on-demand video across 20 focused lessons and five sections, section quizzes and a final exam, lifetime access on mobile and TV and a certificate of completion.
No prior stress analysis experience is required — the theory is built from first principles. Comfortable with basic algebra is enough; no advanced mathematics is needed.
Enrol now and learn what the software is actually doing.
Who this course is for:
- Piping and mechanical engineers moving into stress analysis for the first time
- Stress engineers who learned the software but were never taught the theory behind it
- Project and EPC engineers who review, check or approve stress analysis reports
- Piping designers and layout engineers who want systems that pass analysis first time
- Rotating equipment and package engineers dealing with nozzle load compliance disputes
- Graduate engineers building a foundation in the highest-demand piping specialism