Old K says every week – Talking about things in the petrochemical design industry. Post 56: Pipeline research
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Old K writes every week – Talks about things in the petrochemical design industry, Post 56: Piping studies. Recently I went to a project site and found some unreasonable aspects in the layout and piping design; upon further reflection, the main reason is the lack of proper or thorough piping studies being carried out. In petrochemical design, piping studies are a crucial task, as they are used to optimize the layout of equipment. In the design process of many current projects, due to tight deadlines, adequate piping research is not carried out, and there is often even a lack of basic understanding of piping research. In fact, the tighter the deadline, the more attention should be paid to the planning process. For some projects, the equipment layout of similar projects is copied without any optimization, and unreasonable layouts are carried over. Contents of piping research: Study and optimize the routing of large pipes, pipes under high-temperature stress, and pipes made of precious metals, as well as adjust the equipment layout. Timing for piping studies: Piping studies can be carried out once preliminary suggestions for the equipment layout and PID Version A are available; this is usually done during the middle stage of foundation engineering design or even earlier. Some designers are lazy; they always wait or come up with various excuses. A competent designer, on the other hand, should take the initiative to get started and conduct thorough research on different options, thereby achieving better results with less effort. Methods for pipeline research: Currently, 3D software is generally used for pipeline work. However, framework modeling, equipment modeling, and database creation require a lot of time. Since pipeline research was initiated quite early on, I personally suggest that it can be carried out in 2D, as there aren’t many pipes involved, making it less difficult to handle. Tip: You can enter “Lao K’s Weekly Thoughts – Talks on Matters in the Petrochemical Design Industry” into the website’s search engine to view previous posts
The original poster is right; for a chemical processing plant, the layout of pipelines is indeed very important. Well-designed, with a smooth process flow, low investment costs, easy operation and maintenance, low pipeline resistance, and low operating expenses ； A poor layout not only leads to increased investment costs but also affects future maintenance and operating expenses. I have been involved in two ammonia synthesis plants of the same scale. For one of these plants, the layout of the important pipelines was carefully discussed and optimized in advance; as a result, the total length of the pipelines was only a little over 18,000 meters. The other plant did not undergo such optimization, and its pipelines ended up having a total length of over 21,000 meters. The additional costs associated with pipeline materials, installation, non-destructive testing, and anti-corrosion/insulation measures exceeded 20%.