Economics Applied to Equipment and Pipe Systems

The service life of materials contained in any equipment, even when correlated with corrosion test data, should be primarily weighed in the light of the actual cost. Both the damage and the cost of external and internal corrosion should be considered for evaluation of the service life of hollow equipment and pipe systems. The effect of occasional and periodic variations of internal and external environmental conditions should also be evaluated for the true extent of service life of relevant equipment. 

Whilst it may not always be possible to estimate the actual money cost of equipment, it is possible to make the relevant economic decision with the help of the relative costs for comparison. This applies especially to equipment for which the price quotations vary greatly and are influenced by many factors. Thus it is more meaningful to examine the ways in which the choice of materials may affect primarily the initial cost and then future expenses. 

The number of renewals forecast or necessary in the normal life-span of the equipment should be determined in the economic analysis. The degree of difficulty of the replacement of equipment or pipeline in a particular location will affect their cost. The sum of the renewals of equipment should be multiphed by the sum of labor costs that will accrue through removing and reinstalling the equipment in situ, and by the sum of material costs, in order to obtain a base for the calculations. 

Selections providing a safe reduction in weight should be credited with the side effects of then-weight reduction, e.g. lower power needed to haul given payloads, additional earning power through extra cargo capacity at the same consumption of fuel, etc. 

Some factors to be considered in the economic evaluation of condensers are  

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