Advanced Piping Design

Peter Smith, Rutger Botermans

• Publisher: Gulf Publishing Company
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781933762180
• eBook ISBN: 9780127999869
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Civil Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Advanced Piping Design is an intermediate-level handbook covering guidelines and procedures on process plants and interconnecting piping systems. As a follow up with Smith's best-selling work published in 2007 by Gulf Publishing Company, The Fundamentals of Piping Design, this handbook contributes more customized information on the necessary process equipment required for a suitable plant layout, such as pumps, compressors, heat exchangers, tanks, cooling towers and more! While integrating equipment with all critical design considerations, these two volumes together are must-haves for any engineer continuing to learn about piping design and process equipment.

CHAPTER 1

Basic Plant Layout

1.1 Introduction

1.1.1 General

No two oil and gas processing facilities are exactly the same; however, they share similar types of process equipment, which perform specific functions. The following are significant items of equipment that are discussed in more detail in this book:

• Pumps for the transportation of liquids.

• Compressors for the transportation of compressible fluids.

• Exchangers for the transfer (exchange) of heat from a heating medium to a fluid.

• Fired heaters.

• Columns.

• Tanks for the storage of compressible and noncompressible fluids.

• Pipe racks and pipe ways for the routing of process and utility pipework between equipment.

To allow the facility to function safely and efficiently, to maximize its commercial profitability, and to result in the optimum layout, the interrelationships among the various types of process equipment must be carefully considered. As the layout is developed, compromises often must be made, and the preference generally is the safer option.

All operators of process plants have the same objectives, which is to produce a stable product that meets the end users specification and to maximize the commercial potential of the feedstock for the life of the plant. Even with this common goal operators have subtle differences in the way they have their facilities designed; therefore, the word generally is used liberally in these pages. Generally means that it is common practice, but it is not a mandatory requirement.

Listed next are the considerations that have to be reviewed when positioning the equipment during the development of the plant layout. They have not been listed in an order of priority; however, safety is listed at the top as the most significant issue.

• Safety: fire, explosion, spillage, escape routes for personnel, and access for firefighters.

• Process flow requirements that result in an efficient plant.

• Constructability.

• Segregation of areas for hazardous and nonhazardous materials.

• Operability and maintainability.

• Available plot area, geographical limitations.

• Relationship to adjacent units or other facilities within the plant.

• Economics.

• Future expandability.

• Security: control of access by unauthorized personnel.

• Meteorological information: climate, prevailing and significant wind direction.

• Seismic data.

Equipment should be laid out in a logical sequence to suit the process flow. Fluid flow requirements (for example, gravity flow systems, pump suction heads, and thermosyphonic systems) often dictate relative elevations and necessitate the need for structures to achieve the different elevations. Limitations of pressure or temperature drop in transfer lines decide the proximity of pumps, compressors, furnaces, reactors, exchangers, and the like.

Equipment piping should be arranged to provide specified access, headroom, and clearances for operation and maintenance. Provision should be made to minimize the disturbance to piping when dismantling or removing equipment (for example, without removing block valves), including the use of and free access for mobile lifting equipment. Pumps should be located in rows adjacent to their pipe ways and near the equipment from which they take suction. The top nozzles of pumps should be located in the vicinity of overhead steel, such as a beam at the side of the pipe rack, to facilitate piping support.

Plant layout requires input from the following discipline engineers;

• HSE (health, safety, and environment).

• Process.

• Piping.

• Mechanical (rotating and vessels).

• Civil and structural.

• Instrumentation.

• Electrical.

Once the relevant information has been sourced, several meetings probably will take place between engineers of these disciplines to develop a plant layout that will satisfy the project’s requirements.

As mentioned previously, no two opera...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• PROCESS PIPING DESIGN HANDBOOK
• Copyright
• Dedication
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Basic Plant Layout
• Chapter 2: Pumps
• Chapter 3: Compressors
• Chapter 4: Exchangers
• Chapter 5: Fired Heaters
• Chapter 6: Tanks
• Chapter 7: Columns
• Chapter 8: Cooling Towers
• Chapter 9: Relief Systems
• Chapter 10: Pipe Ways
• Index