What I'm trying to do is connect (2) branch lines together after they come off a header. Here is what the configuration looks like, the point that I'm trying to tie together is labeled "X":
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|--------------
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| |
| |
|-------------X
| |
|...
Question for the AutoPIPE gurus...if you have a header with multiple branches that eventually tie together with a tee, how do you physically connect the branch sections in AutoPIPE. Even if the measurements are exact, the segments do not join and they don't seem to want to join via the join...
I would advise you to re-route. Peat is terrible and settles/degrades like crazy over time. We have high pressure natural gas transmission pipelines running through areas with up to 30' of peat. Pipes are settling, elbows are yielding...it's an ugly situation.
So do you increase the stiffness of the soil or insert an anchor with stiffness proportional to the area increase that the thrust block gives you vs. the pipe itself?
My company has been using thrust blocks for blow down stacks on natural gas transmission pipelines for probably 60 years. I'm not convinced they're really needed as the soil would probably restrain the blow down stacks just fine, but they've been used for a long time.
Why would you replace it with a more flexible element? I think he's referring to a concrete thrust block or something similar, which should help lock the pipe in to the soil and spread the thrust loads out into the soil.