Use of Piping Wear Pads

DGrayPPD · Feb 22, 2017

Good morning guys,

I have another question for everyone today. Our mechanical engineer has a tendency to want to put wear pads on all our piping to avoid direct metal to metal contact with any T support beam, pipe rack beam, or structural beam.

My question is, is this a common practice based on everyone else's experience? I understand piping that may have considerable movement requiring protection from scraping the beam, but for piping that should have little to no movement, what is the point? Is this just another unnecessary added cost to a project? Is it not common practice to just rest piping on top of the steel beam?

And just to be clear, I'm only talking about bare exposed piping with no insulation. If more information is needed before answering my question, please let me know.

Thanks

pennpiper · Feb 22, 2017

DGray,
You asked:
"is this a common practice based on everyone else's experience?" No, it is not common practice.

"Is this just another unnecessary added cost to a project?"
Yes it is an unnecessary added cost to a project.

Sometimes its possible to do all the right things and still get bad results

DGrayPPD · Feb 22, 2017

Thanks pennpiper. Glad to see my thoughts are correct.

MJCronin · Feb 22, 2017

Although this does not specifically address your question, this seems to be the forum to discuss a related issue.

Because of the stray currents that can frequently exist in a process plant, there are some who advocate dielectric isolation of piping from support structures.

Even "cold" piping systems have very slight movements (thermal, wind etc) relative to their support structure.

Accelerated corrosion can exist.... and this can be mitigated by a combination of coated u-bolts and support pads.

A slight increased cost upfront can save corrosion mitigation costs later on

http://www.farwestcorrosion.com/nu-bolt-i-rod-pipe-supports-by-deepwater.html

MJCronin
Sr. Process Engineer

Gator · Feb 22, 2017

Ideally you'll only have movement where you design for it and it'll only be during startup/shutdown due to thermal.

MickMc · Feb 23, 2017

It may be an unneccessary cost to project initially but save money in the long run by avoiding potential corrosion issues as per MJCronin post, CAPEX vs OPEX. It seems from your post that the wear pad is for corrosion purposes rather than actual wear therefore there are other mitigations you can use such as shoes, shields, I-Rod etc and note also that there should be an upper limit of temperature where for corrosion purposes there is no requirment as water entrapment is not concern as it will evaporate.

europipe · Feb 23, 2017

MickMc has a point, where are your shoes?

bimr · Feb 23, 2017

The use of Piping Wear Pads may depend on other factors that have not been mentioned. The local climate may be a significant factor. An offshore platform may have significant corrosion issues that a facility located in an arid location will not see.

Piping Wear Pads also prevent friction damage from vibrations.

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Use of Piping Wear Pads

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