Piping Design
Piping TechEng offers piping design for process, utility, power, and mechanical piping systems. We deliver quality design for a broad range of piping specifications including carbon steel, stainless steel, duplex, alloy steel, copper, PVC, CPVC, as well as Teflon and Polypropylene lined pipe. Our piping design services cover different industries, such as:
Design Process
Our design process covers all the phases of a piping project, from bidding on the project to the construction phase. Using P&ID or PFD, we provide a concept design that can be used for bidding on the project or be applied as a basis for detailed design. During detailed design, we apply process, stress, operation, safety and other considerations to provide a cost-effective design with the best engineering practices applied. Model review with clients is performed at each milestone of the project and design documents and deliverables are provided after completion of the design.
Process Requirements
Our piping design team maintains constant collaboration with all other disciplines through the project phases. Among other disciplines, we typically keep most contact with process team as process requirements are critical for designing a technically sound piping system. We constantly follow P&ID markups to ensure the consistency of the designed piping system with the process requirements. Similarly, we apply other process documents such as line list, valve list, instrument list, etc. to all aspects of piping design such as piping specifications, line numbers, valve and instrument tags. Once piping design is complete, the piping design team provides a markup P&ID that reflects required updates on P&ID such as the sequence of branches, added sub-headers, etc. as resulted from the requirements of piping design. The Piping design team also checks equipment drawings and provides feedback about the orientation of nozzles that works the best for piping design.
Operation and Safety Considerations
It is crucial to consider operation and safety requirements while designing a piping system. Safety is paramount for Piping TechEng team. We ensure to follow the regulatory codes such as OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) or other applicable codes to provide a safe operation. Also, we apply maintenance considerations such as keeping clear areas for maintenance of equipment during piping design. Maintenance areas are shown as no fly zones in the piping model and are reviewed by the client's operation or maintenance team during design model reviews.
Pipe Stress Consideration
We apply our experience of pipe stress analysis during piping design of critical lines to minimize the effort of pipe stress analysis. Considerations such as adding expansion loops for long straight runs, provisions for supporting piping, adding enough flexibility to pipe routing are some of the considerations that can be applied during concept and detailed piping design. Also, performing piping design and pipe stress analysis in parallel provides the advantage of quick and reliable transfer of piping model to pipe stress software, and also pipe supports from stress model to piping model.
Constructability
Our experience piping designers take into account constructability in piping design and creating manufacturing drawings. Piping systems are broken down into smaller spools that are fabricated in a piping fabricator shop and shipped to the project site for installation. Besides designing a compact piping system with a minimum length of pipe and count of fittings, we minimize the number of spools and field welds considering the limitations of transportation, sequence of installation, supporting, and other limitations on the project site. For complex systems, the spools and sequence of installation is one of the items that are reviewed during design review sessions.
Design and Review Tools; Project Setup
Piping TechEng is capable of working with the most up-to-date specialized piping design software. Plant 3D, AutoPlant and CadWorx are some software that we can work with for piping design, and Navisworks is our recommended package for model review. We perform all required steps of software setup, such as setting up the project, adding piping specifications to the project database, setting up title blocks and background files.
Piping Models
Piping models are the core of 3d models that are prepared in a project piping design. In most cases there will be more than one piping model. In big projects, there can be multiple models. Piping TechEng splits the models based on service or area or a combination of them. The goal is to minimize the break down while keeping the size of the files within a range that is workable. We provide a master piping model for collaboration of other disciplines. This master file is shared with other disciplines or contractors through Navisworks or BIM and is typically updated on a daily basis. The piping models are used for preparing piping deliverables such as piping plans, piping isometrics, MTO, etc.
Equipment Data Sheet and Models
It is good engineering practice that a piping design team has the ownership of equipment that has piping connections. As a piping design team, we review equipment cut sheets and provide comments related to piping, such as nozzle or installation orientation, to simplify pipe routing. Also, we prepare and maintain 3d models of equipment in parallel to piping models. If the supplier provides neutral 3d models such as step files, we convert and import them into our models. If 3d models are not available, we prepare a simple model that has the overall shape of the equipment as place holder and the exact location of the nozzles. Also, for equipment that requires maintenance areas, a no fly zone is added to the equipment model. Equipment models are split by room, area or level, and similar to the piping model, a master equipment model is prepared for collaboration with other teams. The equipment models are used to prepare Equipment GA drawings as a part of deliverables and also for the background of piping plans.
Inter-disciplinary Coordination
Coordination is a crucial part of engineering projects and its importance is greater for bigger projects. Our piping design team provides all necessary information for optimum coordination with all other teams of the project, including other disciplines and contractors. Master piping and equipment 3D models are updated regularly and shared with other teams for model coordination. Clash detection is a continuous practice throughout the project to ensure preparing a clash-free model. Piping TechEng is flexible in using Navisworks or Autodesk BIM or other tools and platforms for detecting clashes and resolving them. Also, 2d layouts of piping and equipment models are documents that are prepared to share piping design information with other disciplines for purposes such as hydraulic calculations by process.
Model Reviews
Piping TechEng provides model review on 30%, 60%, and 90% progress of the project. During these sessions, we walk through models internally with other disciplines or externally with the client. The goal is to get comments from other teams of the project or the client’s team and modify the design accordingly.
Pipe Stress Analysis
Our engineering team is capable of providing criteria for piping critical lines, or client’s standard can be used for this purpose. Once the critical line list is prepared, our piping design team can provide pcf files for creating the stress models. We have developed multiple macro scripts that facilitate the process of transferring the piping models to the stress models and save considerable time on the model transfer. When pipe stress analysis is complete, we apply the required modifications and add pipe supports that have resulted from stress analysis.
Pipe and equipment Support
During piping design, we consider pipe supporting requirements. Our design team can add pipe supports to the piping model as per our piping span tables or use the client’s standards. Also, we can design secondary steel structures for pipe supports. If equipment requires steel structure for support, our team is capable of designing and detailing it.
Deliverables
We offer a wide range of documents that can be prepared as deliverables. We can provide material take off (MTO) at any point in the project. Equipment GA drawings is another typical document that is produced. We also prepare piping plans and piping isometrics including spool drawings that are used for piping fabrication and installation. Applying the templates and macro scripts that we have developed through many projects, we are capable of producing any type of custom report and drawings as per clients’ requirements.
At Piping TechEng, we are committed to providing cost-effective quality piping design services. For more information, contact us to discuss how we can help with your piping projects.