Analysis of complex piping
Analysis of complex piping
(OP)
Hello everyone,
How do engineers design complicated piping systems, such as systems with many branches and equipment? Is there some software that helps calculate system curves for complicated piping? I don't see it being feasible to perform calculations by hand, even with Excel or Matlab. Do people really even draw system curves? I could see how estimates can be done with fair accuracy, but I don't see that being ideal at all.
Thanks for any answers! [thumbsup]
How do engineers design complicated piping systems, such as systems with many branches and equipment? Is there some software that helps calculate system curves for complicated piping? I don't see it being feasible to perform calculations by hand, even with Excel or Matlab. Do people really even draw system curves? I could see how estimates can be done with fair accuracy, but I don't see that being ideal at all.
Thanks for any answers! [thumbsup]





RE: Analysis of complex piping
Software for performing such analysis has been around for decades
http://www.aft.com/products/fathom
MJCronin
Sr. Process Engineer
RE: Analysis of complex piping
- There are people who prefer it
- There are people who hate it
- The software has bugs in it (even something that has been around for decades like Stoner)
- Some packages have strengths that correspond with your needs
- Some packages have weaknesses that correspond with your needs
At the end of the day, you need to determine what is most important to you (simple looped lines, ease of inputting a compression or pump station, complex equipment arrangements that can reverse the direction of flow in a line, variety of available flow correlations, ease of input, graphical vs. tabular output, etc).I always take a set of data that has the characteristics that concern me and try to replicate the field results in the network model. The data set is tough, and most fail (nearly all tend to fail in a flow-reversal scenario, but that scenario is reasonably uncommon). A model that matches my data set can (and probably does) have other bugs that I didn't test (e.g., I've never had a network that I was evaluating that had pressure reducing valves, I just don't work on that end of the value chain so I've never tested that feature in a model), but I call it "good enough" and use it to evaluate piping condition for a few systems before I will rely on it for a network design analysis.
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist
RE: Analysis of complex piping
Thanks again for your help.
RE: Analysis of complex piping
https://eng-software.com/download/business-develop...
RE: Analysis of complex piping