I think you might want to take a look at API RP 14C. This would give you a feeling of the minimum safety devises that are associated with different pieces of equipment in oil gas facilities.
Dear Friend ,
It is better for you that review some drawings and BASIC DESIGN DOCUMENTS and a PFD of a certain process and then review it's P&ID with it's process description documents and for having more feel about the designed process , studying document of Control Philosiphy or Control Strategy is very useful for you .
Lay your hands on the PID for any of process plant in your company.
Get the Symbol and Legend Sheet - it gives you the meaning or definition of the different symbols used in PIDs.
Either get a more experienced person to explain the intention of the plant or what the plant is designed to achieve or read the plant design manuals to understand the operating philosophy.
Lay your hands on API-14C to give you an appreciation of the reasons behind the safety device introduced or shown on the PID.
Also start to get yourself to understand how the different process equipments shown on the PID operate. In addition understand how the instruments shown on the PID operate. Read textbooks, handbooks or course materials to give your understanding of how they work.
If you're looking for a standard to set up P&ID's may I suggest, ANSI/ISA S5.1-latest date, "Instrumentation Symbols and Identification" it can be purchased from the
Instrument Society of America (or whatever their latest reincarnation is)
Attn: Stnadards Department
67 Alexander Drive
P.O. Box 12227
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
Another way to have a feel of a P&ID is to lay your hands on the "control narratives" of an oil/gas facilities which can be one of the project deliverables, although it might be prepared by the clients some times. using this alongside the P&ID will make you appreciate the rationale for different instruments. understanding the functions of these control devices is a good percentage of understanding the P&ID.
There's nothing like the comissioning process to learn what the PFD and P&ID are all about. Walking the system from end to end and making note of the actual equipment and instruments installed in the field and corellating that with what's shown on the associated P&ID will give your understanding a good grounding in reality. You may well find there are some differences here and there....but that's another topic. (g)
For new processes, the development process often begins with developing a simple "functional block diagram" which spells out in narrative form the operations you want to perform on the media being processed, the input specifications and product specifications. Starting with a block diagram is nice in that it doesn't prematurely steer you towards one flow logic or another until after you've got your ducks in a row. But this is just my preference.
For processes I'm quite familiar with, such as oil and gas separation or compression processes, I'll dive right into the PFD or P&ID.
At the end of the day, the P&ID like many other engineering drawings, is a communication tool as well as a configuration control tool.
A lot of people don't really understand what a P&ID is. I've seen companies hand their shop a P&ID and say "build it". (g) The P&ID is NOT a design or fabrication drawing. It is an engineering drawing which is used as a primary point of reference for the design process. It's also a great operational and training tool.
