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Beginner piping engineer advice 3

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pdq94

Mechanical
Mar 27, 2014
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What books do you recommend for beginner piping engineers, especially for MANUAL piping stress analysis ? Also, what do you advise me as a new person in this field of work ? This my first post in this forum in my first month of work, hopefully I will find an answer for my queries.
Thank you [glasses]
 
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Best advise would be to get yourself alongside a good experienced Piping Engineer as a mentor. He should then be able to teach you more than any book could. However if it is books you want then the book by Peng is probably the best for pipe stress engineering. Just Google Peng "Pipe Stress Engineering". As rregards manual piping Stress then find an old copy of Kelloggs Book. However MANUAL pipe stressing is not performed anymore as we have IT gadgets called PC's nowadays!!! My advice would be to forget about piping and get onto Projects - it's easier and monetary benefits are better!!!
 
pdq94,
Some background:
I spent more than 45 years in Process Plant (Refineries, Chemical, Power, etc) Piping Engineering and Design.
My experience ranged from entry level to Piping Department Manager and included some related assignments into Materials Management, Field Engineering, pipe fabrication shop Engineering Manager and Software Development.

During my years I worked with a lot of Pipe Stress Engineers (PSE) as a Piping Designer, a Unit Lead, a Piping Design Lead, a Piping Engineering Lead (over the total project) and as the Piping Department Manager. As the department manager I was responsible for hiring, training, job assignments and performance appraisal of all members of the Piping department including the Pipe Stress staff.

The average Engineering/Design/Procurement/Construction company piping department there will be:
70% Piping Layout Designers
9% Piping Material Engineers
7% Piping Material Control
7% Pipe Stress Engineers (PSE)
7% Lead Piping Engineer & Staff

The large percentage (90% to 95%) of all the Pipe Stress Engineers (PSE’s) that I came in contact with (on the job or as Piping Department Manager) were very good, even great. The remaining percentage was not worth having on the staff.

The reason the good Pipe Stress Engineers were good and the bad Pipe Stress Engineers were bad are related. It was like the two sides of the same coin.

The good ones got to know the designers and worked with them.
The good ones could read drawings and 3D models.
The good ones took the time to understand the design.
The good ones knew how to suggest alternates that might solve a problem.
The good ones would teach the designers how to avoid stress problems.
The good ones knew and understood that all the stress analysis in the world does not make a bad design good.
The good ones knew how to be a team player.

As a team player you need to learn and understand what all the other team players do and how you can help them succeed as well as how they can help you succeed.

I hope that if you decide to go into Pipe Stress Engineering this will be of help to you.


prognosis: Lead or Lag
 
to pdq94

If You can find, a very nice book is (bilingual english-german) "Structural analysis of buried pipes" written by Hornung & Kittel, published by Bauverlag-Berlin.
I could send a scanned copy but I think there is a copyright problem

Regards
 
to pdq94

further to previous thread, I would like to invite You first to study a bit of theory and after that to wear the work clothes and try to match what you learned on the book with the good field practice (learning from the workers, too)
Good luck
 
pdq94,

To get a bit of a foothold try some web resources and specific websites for piping design - just try googling "Piping design guide" for starters, but take note of pennpipers excellent post above. Other than pretty simple static calculations in e.g. B 31.4 / 8, most stress analysis now of piping systems is software modelling based, but knowing what looks like the right answer and which needs to be checked or corrected to discover the input error is a key skill which only comes with time.

My motto: Learn something new every day

Also: There's usually a good reason why everyone does it that way
 
Thank u all for ur advice and help. For the current time, I think it's better to be exposed to work rather than reading books. I thought I can get it fast, but this is not the case here, it needs patience, time, and practice.
 
Even I am new to this field. I am working as a Pipng layout engineer for the past 8 months and this is my very first job. I have an M. Tech in Pipeline Engineering. I have very good senior engineers here who have very good technical knowledge and skills and I am guided properly by them. Hoping to grow as an excellent Piping Engineer. And I am also new to this forum :). All the best. :)

And FYI, I did my post graduation final project on Piping Stress Analysis. I did not follow any specific book. I just followed my company's manual books and took lectures from senior staff.

L. Hariharan, Essar Projets India Limited, Hydrocarbon SBU, India.
 
pdg94,

An excellent book is Peng&Peng 'Pipe Stress Engineering', ASME Press 2009. Has all the important theory and a lot of sound practical advise.

As another contributor has already said, manual stress analysis is not done anymore, it is all by computer, e.g. using Caesar II
 
Suggest your join a professional engineering institution like ASME, IMechE, IEAust and take advantage of their free virtual libraries. There you will find numerous books. When you find one you are comfortable with for your field of endeavour digest the contents.

“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.”
---B.B. King
 
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