【Serial】The Growth Story of a Chemical Engineering Designer-49

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(49) After listening to Sister Meng’s explanation, in order to get a preliminary understanding, Ye Wenhui spent a day going through the guidelines she had mentioned. He noted down the important points in his notebook. Due to the limited time available, he only managed to skim through them, which left him feeling dizzy; nevertheless, he was able to get a general idea of what was written in those guidelines. After reading the specifications, he rechecked the tables he had prepared, such as those detailing the grade of pipe materials, the wall thickness of pipes, and the information related to branches. He made some changes to the areas pointed out by Sister Meng, and then submitted the table detailing the grade of pipe materials to her. Sister Meng said to Ye Wenhui, \"The pipeline materials are fine now; we can proceed with piping. Ask the electrical team to provide you with the details regarding the cables.\" ” Ye Wenhui came across the requirements for cable layout in the \"Design Specifications for Pipeline Layout in Chemical Plant Equipment\" (HG 20549). After asking Sister Meng, the designer in the electrical engineering field, he called the electrical engineering department. The designer in the electrical engineering field is Tian Hongqi, who is also a young man in his twenties. Among the nearly 100 people in the design institute, more than half are under 30 years old, a situation that puzzles Ye Wenhui greatly: with so many young people in the design institute, where have all the former employees gone? He once asked Li Mengyuan, and according to Li Mengyuan, it was all due to the wave of layoffs in the 1990s. Around the mid-to-late 1990s, the domestic market economy developed rapidly; many uncompetitive state-owned enterprises were restructured or went bankrupt, resulting in a large number of employees losing their jobs, and there were very few new chemical manufacturing projects established. Design work is aimed at providing technical services for chemical engineering projects. Due to the lack of such projects, many design institutes often have no work to do for long periods of time; design companies run out of resources, and many design institutes even face the risk of closing down. The number of designers has decreased significantly. It was during that time that the nine major design institutes under the Ministry of Chemical Industry began to undergo restructuring. The predecessor of Qilu Jinxing Engineering Design Co., Ltd. was a provincial-level public institution. Due to its small size, the transformation process took place relatively late; it wasn’t until around 2003 that the company officially entered the design industry. Before that, because of the poor financial performance of the institution, employees received low salaries, and many of the long-term staff resigned to seek other employment opportunities. The few remaining employees were the last ones to stay at the company. The situation at that time was extremely difficult; it was impossible to sit idly by. Restructuring was a last resort, but unexpectedly, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. When the design company was established and entered the market, it coincided with a boom in the real estate sector; the manufacturing industry was growing rapidly, and there was an increasing number of chemical industry projects. Moreover, the company’s leadership was adept at seizing market opportunities, which enabled them to secure many good projects, and as a result, the company grew very quickly. Most of the employees were hired in recent years; not to mention the young ones, there are also many older employees who were recruited through open recruitment processes. There aren’t many true long-term employees left. Ye Wenhui asked Li Mengyuan, “Who were the old employees from before?” ” Li Mengyuan listed a few names for him; those people were almost all the heads of various departments. Among them, the most prominent ones were the company’s chief engineer and the company’s vice president – Liu Shuang. Liu Shuang is several years younger than Zhang Qiyun. The reason he was able to stand out and become the chief engineer lies not only in his technical skills but also in many other factors; one of them, and perhaps the most important, is his ability to bring projects to the company. Li Mengyuan said mysteriously to Ye Wenhui, \"Don’t think just because the people in the Ministry of Commerce seem so impressive, they’re still far inferior compared to President Liu. Many of the company’s long-term clients were established by President Liu. Otherwise, with those people constantly traveling around to secure projects, the company and all its employees would have had no way of surviving, let alone enjoying such a comfortable life.\" Our President Liu is truly exceptional; even the company’s top executives respect her greatly. This alone shows her outstanding abilities. Don’t underestimate her skills just because she’s beautiful. ”After hearing this, Ye Wenhui couldn’t help but feel great respect for Liu Shuang. Thinking about the bold statements he had made in front of Liu Shuang, he felt a slight tremor within himself. Fortunately, what he had done at that time wasn’t that extreme. Not long after making the call to Tian Hongqi, he sent Ye Wenhui the dimensions of the cable tray. Sister Meng told Ye Wenhui that his responsibility was limited to the pipes inside the device; she would handle the external piping herself. The interface points between different areas were already marked on the equipment layout diagram, so Ye Wenhui only needed to arrange the pipes starting from those interface points. First, Ye Wenhui sorted out all the equipment shown in the equipment layout diagram according to the manufacturing process. In fact, the process for this project is not complicated; it’s just that the equipment is quite large in size – several of the towers are over 20 meters tall. In addition to the equipment on the ground level, there are also four platforms at different heights, with all the reflux tanks, heat exchangers, distillation vessels, and other equipment located on these platforms at various heights. Sister Meng told Ye Wenhui, “When making the arrangements, first determine the location of the pipe corridors within the installation; the main pipes and boundary valves should all be placed in one area to facilitate on-site operations.” All pipes should preferably go in a ‘step-up’ or ‘step-down’ pattern to avoid the formation of ‘liquid pockets’ or ‘air pockets’. When setting up branch pipes, gas and steam pipes are led out from above the main pipe, while liquid pipes are led out from below it. Horizontal pipes should be arranged as far below the platform as possible to avoid obstructing the movement of people on it. Vertical pipes should be concentrated in areas that pass through the platform, in order to reduce the number of openings on the platform, and they must not pass through the walkway areas on the platform. All pipes should be as short and straight as possible; vacuum pipes should use as few elbows and valves as possible. The centerline of valves that are operated frequently should preferably be within the range of 0.7 to 1.6 meters. Keep these basic principles and detailed requirements in mind, and you can refer to the relevant specifications while making the arrangements. First, install the process pipelines, large-diameter pipes, and other such pipelines, and then install the auxiliary and smaller pipes. When doing this, imagine that you are working on-site; the layout of the pipelines as well as the positions of valves and instruments should be such that they facilitate comfortable operation for you. When arranging the pipes, it is necessary to consider their support methods at the same time. After the pipes are arranged, the requirements regarding openings and supports on the platform must be submitted to the structural engineering team. ” Ye Wenhui has been involved in the pipeline layout for some simple projects. Facing a complex project for the first time, he encountered quite a few challenges, but he wasn’t caught off guard. He divided the installation area into several sections based on the locations of the operating platforms, and created a separate pipeline layout diagram for each platform level. Then, he drew diagrams while referring to the specifications; when he wasn’t sure how to arrange things, he would seek Meng Jie’s advice. He worked very slowly, managing to draw only a dozen pipes per day. He stayed busy like this for several days, and before long, National Day arrived. The long-awaited holiday has finally arrived.