What makes you a Piping Design Engineer?
Basic knowledge and skills required to be a Piping Design Engineer
Last time I posted the difference between Piping Engineer and Piping Design Engineer. I hope that have distinguished the clarity between the roles. This time I wanted to be very specific about the skills required to become a piping design engineer. At outside we neither get an exposure nor have an environment to move freely to access about where to start, what to learn and whom to reach to know all such that can make you a piping design engineer. Finally we end up getting irrelevant & unstructured information that once again put you in dilemmas. I have seen people with much expectation joining an institution believing that it would mould them to be of what they want. Indeed there are chances for being framed or cheated unless you know about your need. I feel it’s very important for each one of us to focus on those specific skills needed to fit in to the dream role. The intent of this blog is to specify the basic knowledge, and skills required for piping design engineer. Moreover I don’t want anyone to come across the same situation like in our time where you will put in a race without knowing its end.
Where to start?
Visual Approach
As a beginner in this industry, the first step I would recommend to have a visual glance where you see the piping in reality either in pictures or in 3D graphical model. This gives an overall picture about the output you are going to produce. For anything, unless you see in reality you are happen to make mistakes imagining something else. Having the facility with modern internet features, you can browse on for photos and videos of process plant, refineries in internet that eliminates being dependent on others.
General Knowledge of Equipment’s
It is important to have knowledge of primary equipment’s used in Oil and gas, Petrochemicals, Refineries, & Power sectors. In depth knowledge is not really needed for this subject, perhaps the basic function, working principle, inlet and outlet end connections are important. The major equipments are pump, heat exchanger,drums, distillation colunm, compressor, turbine, aircooler, & reactor.
Ability to read P&ID
Sound knowledge in P&ID is inevitable. The P&ID is the key input for all the piping activities. It is very important for a Piping design engineers to read, understand and interpret the P&ID (Process design) in to mechanical system. Preparation of P&ID is the role of Process engineer hence piping design engineer are only expected to understand P&ID. There is something called Legend of P&ID which is none other than a drawing that shows the description of the symbols used in P&ID. In condition where symbols are seems to be new and unknown, refer the legend for its description.
General Knowledge of Pipe Fittings & Valves
Piping system is an arrangement of components which facilitates the flow of fluid as per the process requirement. The Piping components consist of Fittings, pipes & valves. Piping design engineer shall have the indepth knowledge of types of fittings (such as elbow, tee, reducer, flange etc.), Pipes used in process piping & common valves used in refineries. A good knowledge on fittings & valves is a key factor to become a qualified piping design engineer.
Knowledge on International codes and standards
The application of international codes and standards such ASME, API, ANSI shall be well known. The codes and standards are categorised to cover all the industries and their specific requirements for the construction. Piping design engineers are expected to know about the codes & standards that are applicable for Oil & gas, Refineries, Petrochemicals, & Power sectors. It’s evident that all these codes and standards cannot be read in overnight. As a basic requirement, at least the purpose and the point of application specific to your industry sector shall be known well with fair exposure on common material standards often used.
Study Piping Terms and terminologies
Every industry has its own naming systems by which specification are commonly filtered that are called terminologies. For example, thickness of pipe is termed as “Schedule” in piping industry. There are several other terms such as Bevel end, plain end, male thread end, female thread end, weld neck, weldolets, seamless, welded, swage, nipple, plug, BOP, TOS, and FOT etc. A sit on study is required to gather and memories all such terms used in our practice.
Piping Symbols
Piping symbols are used in preparation of layouts and isometrics. There are two different symbols to be learnt. Symbols used for layout making and other used for isometric making. There is quite big difference between layout symbols and isometric symbols. Good understanding of symbol is mandatory to prepare a perfect piping layout and isometric drawings. A piping design engineers are expected to have very good knowledge about piping symbols and moreover in most of the interviews you will be tested on your symbol skill set.
What are the Piping Deliverables to be prepared?
It is as important as you know about the subject of piping engineering. Finally the deliverables are meant to be the output that goes for construction. The basic deliverables to be prepared for the ease of constructions are Equipment layout, Plot Plan, Piping Layout with Elevation sections as necessary, and Piping Isometrics. There are certain other deliverables also to be prepared which indirectly links with the completion of design and construction. Those are nozzle orientation drawing, MTO, Valve list, Valve data sheet, Filter data sheet etc. However the overall responsibility does not limited with the above mentioned deliverables, here and there some documents are likely to be prepared for the ease of the execution of the project either at the design phase or at the construction phase.
2D Drafting and drawing skill
Mechanical Engineers are known for communicating with pencil and scale. Since software makes the job easier now it’s a mandatory requirement for an engineer to have a 2D drafting skill. We must be well conversant with AUTOCAD commands and tools to prepare the drawings up to the requirement. Keep yourself updated with latest software used in industries such AutoCAD, Microstation.
Pipe Routing Concepts
Piping engineering is not as simple as it sounds to be, so do pipe routing. Certain rules and logics to be considered for routing pipes in process plant or in other wise we can say industrial piping is different from other commercial piping system.
Here is the list of parameters to meet the minimum design requirement.
a) Simple routing.
b) Minimize fitting.
c) Routing to ease space for support.
d) Provision for High vent and low drain points.
e) Avoid downward loop.
f) Minimize unnecessary piping loops.
g) Head room clearance, bridge crossing clearance, road crossing clearance to be maintained.
h) Avoid taking bend in horizontal plane in Rack.
i) Consider the provision for expansion loops
j) Minimum gap between pipe to pipe.
k) Consider valve operation and maintenance space.
i) Provision for future piping
m) Clash free routing while compiling with other discipline such as cable tray, instrument trays.
In addition to the above mentioned requirements, there are some more requirements specific to the application to be considered.
Pipe support types and application
A piping design engineer also needs to have an excellent knowledge on Pipe support types and it point of application. Supports are the pillars of piping system. A system without proper support is risky and disastrous. The Supports in piping system has vital role in minimizing the unwanted loads caused due to shock, vibration, wind load, seismic load, water hammer and also takes the weight of the whole piping system there by giving stability and risk free operations.
Common supports are shoes, trunnion, guide, anchors, hangers, spring supports, dummy supports, limit stop, U-bolts, etc.
The above mentioned contents are numbered in order to help the engineers who wish to learn piping engineering step by step. It’s always preferred to go with your own interest and methods in pursuing anything you want rather stepping on others foot. But the above mentioned orders are really helpful for substantial growth.
We still have not covered everything here.
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