Requirement of Flexibility in Piping

Design: An overview
November 11, 2018 2 Comments

 A rigid piping system experiences stresses during operation at high temperatures.

 Providing sufficient flexibility in routing is critical to ensure stresses in the piping
system is within acceptable limits.
 Be focused on providing flexible routing for large bore and temperature critical
piping.
 Flexibility in piping connected to strain sensitive equipments like pumps,
compressors, columns, turbines, plate heat exchangers, etc. is a must.

What it means!!!

 The piping designer should be aware of the stress and support concepts in piping
layout which are the guiding principles behind flexible pipe routing.
 The piping designer should be aware of what pipe expansion means, how rigid piping
induces stress and how to provide minimum expansion length using guided cantilever
tables.
 Stress engineer is always there to review flexibility but piping designer uses best
judgment and coordinates with stress engineer as needed to design a flexible and
stable pipe route upfront.

How does it help!

 Understanding stress and flexibility concepts will help designer in reducing cycle time
for the preparation of an effective layout which is acceptable to the stress engineer.
 Increases the technical expertise of the designer in piping layout and design and also
gives a good understanding of pipe supporting norms.
 Will lead to better design, more effective and accurate material take-off & shorter
schedule.

Some Critical Equipments & Systems:

 Pump suction and discharge piping (High temp and sizes ≥ 12” more critical)
 Furnace and Reactor piping
 Column and Air Cooler piping
 Column and Reboiler piping – Two phase flow
 Compressor piping
 Turbine piping

Examples of Flexible Piping:

1. Pump Piping (Column/Vessel to Pump):

 Provide sufficient pipe leg perpendicular to pump suction axis so as to absorb suction
line growth. Refer Figure 1.
  Case 1 piping is more flexible as column nozzle is perpendicular to pump axis and
pumps set equidistant from column centerline helps minimize differential thermal
growth across pump axis.

Fig. 1: Typical pump routings

 Case 2 has column nozzle parallel to pump axis and this layout is less flexible because
thermal growth along pump axis has to be absorbed by offset loop.
 Cases 3 are preferred arrangement for higher temps and higher suction/discharge pipe
sizes.
 Provide min 5D straight run from first elbow to pump suction.
 First base support shall be adjustable.
 Consider low friction slide plate where required.

1. Furnace/Reactor layout and flexibility in piping design when interspaced with a

pipe rack. Refer Fig. 2.

 (Case 1) Common practice is to locate both Furnace & Reactor on same side of pipe
rack so that connected line on rack moves away from the equipments during thermal
expansion
 (Case 2) In alternate layout mid section of line on rack acts as pivot allowing pipe on
either side to move away from equipment due to thermal expansion (more loads on
nozzles).
Fig. 2: Typical Furnace reactor Layout

Tall Column Piping (Fig. 3)

 Considering column expansion is very critical to effective and efficient piping design.
 Column skirt expansion is also critical.
 Use the tables for standard pipe guide spacing for supporting of vertical lines.
 Avoid loop on vertical down comer alongside the column.
 First support is almost always a “Rest Support”.
Fig. 3: Typical column piping

Conclusions:

 Reduce stress by providing flexibility in the piping system and proper balanced
supporting to ensure uniform distribution of piping loads.
 Remember that pipe moves when hot and movement shall not be restrained by
adjacent pipe.
 Understand that different materials have different thermal coefficient of linear
expansion (i.e. SS expands more than CS).
 Most sustained case loads (dead loads) in a piping system can be addressed by the
designer by use of support span table and guide tables.
 Avoid fitting-to fitting routing of lines especially for higher sizes and temps
 Remember that expansion leg in the other direction/plane is good but in third
direction/plane is better (3-D loop better than 2-D)
 Piping design owns the ultimate responsibility for effective, economic and efficient
design