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Compressed Air System - Pipe Material To Be Used?

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moeg

Mechanical
Dec 7, 2012
5
Hi,

What is the Piping material to be used in a burried compressed air system?

i am using GI, is it Acceptable?

Best Regards,
 
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If I can assume that "GI" does not mean "government issue" and does mean "Galvanized Iron" then I'll have to say "ID" (you don't have to guess, I mean "It Depends", but random acronyms are rarely a good idea). It depends on:
[ul]
[li]Is the air properly dehydrated?[/li]
[li]Is the piping going to be externally coated?[/li]
[li]Is the piping mission critical (i.e., what is the actual impact of an outage)?[/li]
[/ul]

In other words, it depends on the level of corrosion risk that you can tolerate.

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
 
Acceptable? – Most likely. I don’t know your location but I’m unaware of any regulation that would prohibit it.
Ideal? – Not really. Corrosion is an issue. As zdas04 said, it all depends on the corrosion risk you can tolerate.

Two more things to consider
[ul 1][li]If you don’t sufficiently dry your air, water will collect in the underground line. The corrosion issue can be both external and internal.[/li]
[li]Underground leaks are tough to identify and costly to fix (most plants have a hard enough time addressing their above ground, blow-your-hair-as-you-walk-by leaks).[/li][/ul]
 
Also GI implies screwed connections / joints as you can't weld it. Screwed connections are normally not good news in buried systems.

As it is buried why not use PE or some other form of plastic?

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
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