Design life of pipeline fittings and other components in petrochemical pilot plants

It mainly involves building a new pilot-scale plant, and I want to know parameters such as the design service life of these equipment items.

Pilot-scale plants probably don’t require a service life like regular plants do! Especially pipelines

It can be determined through negotiation. It’s best to have a meeting minutes as a basis for the design, in order to work with users, bosses, project managers, or in short, anyone who has decision-making authority.

This depends on the overall plan of the design institute and the requirements of the client; these can all be adjusted. Let me show you the newly issued uniform design specifications: Unless there are special requirements, the design life of equipment can be determined as follows: a) Thick-walled hydrogenation reactors made of chromium-molybdenum steel or high-alloy steel (nominal thickness ≥ 50 mm): 30 years ； b) Important towers (including the atmospheric and vacuum towers in atmospheric and vacuum distillation units, the fractionation towers in catalytic cracking and hydrogenation units, the coke tower and fractionation tower in delayed coking units, the adsorption towers in hydrogen production units, the xylene towers in continuous reforming units, etc., as well as other towers with a diameter of ≥4000 mm), other reactors (including the reaction (settling) vessels and regenerators in catalytic cracking units, the regenerator in continuous reforming units, etc.), high-pressure heat exchanger shells, large storage tanks of 100,000 m3 or more, spherical tanks, other high-pressure thick-walled vessels (with a nominal thickness of ≥50 mm), and other components in the aforementioned equipment that are difficult to replace: 20 years ； c) Other towers, other vessels (including lift tube reactors, external heat exchangers, three-stage cyclone separators and other equipment in the reaction and regeneration systems of catalytic cracking units), other heat exchanger shells: 15 years ； d) Other storage tanks: 15 years ； e) High-alloy steel or non-ferrous metal tube bundles: 10 years ； f) Carbon steel and low-alloy steel pipe bundles, removable internal components within the tower: 6 years or not less than one operating cycle.

It seems that there is no fixed standard yet for the service life of the equipment in pilot-scale plants.

Are there any standard specifications for the design of pilot-scale plants? Could you recommend one?

For a pilot plant, the owner surely puts forward requirements when commissioning the design! Just design it according to their requirements. To be honest, the standard requirement for properly designed pipelines is a lifespan of 15 years, but in practice this is hardly ever achieved, as the design parameters and conditions often differ from those in reality. Local inspection agencies also conduct inspections during maintenance and repair work. If corrosion is found to be beyond the design limits, it also needs to be evaluated and replaced. It is sufficient to meet the requirement of maintenance every 3 years, as long as there are no issues throughout one operating cycle, with the exception of key valves and equipment. :lol:lol