Minimum depth of piping
Minimum depth of piping
(OP)
Hi,
I am working on gas facility and I want to know if there is any restriction on a minimum depth to respect for piping elements?
Thanks.
I am working on gas facility and I want to know if there is any restriction on a minimum depth to respect for piping elements?
Thanks.





RE: Minimum depth of piping
Your question is too vague. Please give us more information defining the situation.
RE: Minimum depth of piping
A good rule of thumb for me is that minimum depth should be at or just below frost line. Up here, that's usually deep enough that it addresses traffic loads, overburden issues, and other things as well.
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: Minimum depth of piping
Outside a facility for a pipeline, 1 meter clear cover is usually acceptable in cross country areas, or 0.5 m if the pipe is placed on a sand bed in a cut rock trench with 2 wraps of rock shield.
You might use something like 1.25 m at desert trail crossings where nothing more than a light truck would go and maybe 2 meters under more heavily traveled roads.
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"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/
RE: Minimum depth of piping
So, you folks actually have facilities where underground pipe locations are well-known and marked?
We don't...our clients don't see the value in accurate as-builts for such lines.
It keeps the hydro-vac companies in business, Failing that, we find them rather reliably with pile driving equipment.
Uh-oh...must be time for another coffee...
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: Minimum depth of piping
David
RE: Minimum depth of piping
**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/
RE: Minimum depth of piping
David
RE: Minimum depth of piping
The good old "bend a couple of welding rods at 90 degrees and hold them out like this" technique actually does work, by the way. I wouldn't have believed it until I tried it.
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: Minimum depth of piping
A lotta' help you were last week.
thread164-255850: Pipe Location
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"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/
RE: Minimum depth of piping
Perhaps I should try a couple of bent paper clips to look for the right threads to read on my computer screen.
In future I'll try not to let you down.
And...I hope *you know* I am kidding and in no way mean any disrespect towards a fellow colleague who happens to be pretty smart and earned my respect many posts ago...
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: Minimum depth of piping
We have a few thousand miles of FRP pipelines around here and we've tried everything from ground penetrating radar to witching sticks and a cost vs. reliability analysis always shows that a couple of bent wires come out way on top. The Ground Penetrating Radar thing looked like a lawn mower and was just about as effective in finding FRP lines in sandy soil. It worked slightly better in damp soil, but the results were anything but repeatable. The other devices that look like something you should take to a beach to look for lost change were no more repeatable. I trusted the bent wire every time (i.e., if the %10,000 detector disagreed with the bent wire I believed the bent wire and dug there, by hand).
David
RE: Minimum depth of piping
We did have some guys back then that knew where everything was, in the 800 well system, but they were going to get vested in the pension plan in a few months, so Stanley fired them. I tried to start what must have been the first attempt at an oilfield GIS system right after that on a MacII PC, but then one Friday I had enough money for a full tank, so I got in the truck and headed back to Houston.
Snorgy, be cool.
**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/
RE: Minimum depth of piping
ASCE's publication, "Pressure Pipeline Design for Water and Wastewater" (rev. 1992) says in at least partial explanation in this regard, "Depth of bury of pipelines is a function of the probability of line protection from construction damage, surface live loads, freezing and rupture, scour depth at river crossings and occasionally, pipeline grades" (and in another area talking about truck/vehicle loads and impacts, "Depth of cover over a pipe will influence the amount of truckload transmitted to it. Extra consideration should be given to loads that are transmitted to the pipe by heavy construction equipment or pipe with very little earth cover.")
While some references speak of about 2-1/2 feet (or 0.75 m) or a pipe diameter or more in the case of larger pipes (and depth of cover can also be related to thrust and other "restraint"), ASCE's MOP N0. 89, "Pipeline Crossings" (rev. 1996) makes many statements that can be related to requirements in some special cases for up to four or five feet or more of minimum cover depth for some crossings. It also briefly discusses depth as it relates to some seismic issues/applications, and it furthermore also says with regard to yet another (it appears sort of Archimedean) issue, "Simply put, pipelines will float or become buoyant when the mass of the pipe material, commodity, and backfill is less than the mass of the fluid displaced by the pipeline."
The "Recommended Standards for Water Works" ("Ten States Standards") curtly says, "Water mains shall be covered with sufficient earth or other insulation to prevent freezing."
In summary, I guess it could be argued meaningful depth of cover may some "insulate" the pipeline from many more effects and impacts than just thermal, and the vulnerability of a pipeline in many respects is perhaps at least some reduced with some degree of increasing cover depth (in perhaps now even more respects than before!)