Painting of pipes in pipe racks. 2

[mrtangent]

Dear sirs,

On our site we had "for years and years !!" this policy of painting all our pipe rack pipes green as for process. We are considering a system of using colours for high hazard lines to aid ID issues quickly if we have a leak.

I am curious on peoples views on how effective they find this and how common colour co-ordination is.

We do use yellow for N2, blue plant air but thats about it.

 

[epoisses]

Just a humble suggestion, wouldn't the money be better spent on preventing leaks instead?
Otherwise, I guess you'd have to rank this project against other HSE projets in terms of contingency/risk reduced versus money spent.

 

[Montemayor]

James:

You are right to expect various and different views on the subject of color coding plant piping. This subject is not new and has been discussed at length in other threads.

My advice and opinions on the subject have never changed after I ran, operated, and managed various plants during my first 10 years of engineering tenure. I dealt with various hazardous raw materials and end products, so I developed a different slant than most folks. My views and reasons are as follows:

1. The principal reason for color coding plant piping (this includes process and utility piping) is SAFETY. Leakage detection is also important – particularly when it falls under hazardous spills, fugitive emissions, and flammable/explosive fluids.

2. The safety ramifications become vitally important when you have outsiders working within what is ordinarily your closed, cloistered territory – like outside paramedics and firemen responding to your distress call when a local situation gets beyond your control. This is a particularly dangerous situation because the outside specialists that are trying to help you control a situation have no idea or concept of what is around them when they arrive in your “turf” (the Buncefield Terminal Incident - thread135-147885 is one such type of incident that could present such a situation to arise).

3. It is considered wise and prudent operational practice to always know exactly where all your hazardous lines are – as well as utilities. Knowing where your cooling water lines are can be a life saver during a local fire-fighting incident where the local fire hydrant turns up dry or not operable. I certainly would not allow the placement of inert Nitrogen lines near a process vessel together with instrument air and process air lines without making sure that each one of these lines is clearly and thoroughly color-coded and marked with signs indicating which is which. Too many times in the past humans have suffered asphyxiation during a vessel entry because maintenance personnel were not made aware of which line was process air and which was Nitrogen. Nitrogen may not be classified as “Hazardous”, but it certainly is deadly.

4. Even if you are dealing with totally benign and environmentally safe fluids, you still have to protect your pipe investment by painting. Paint essentially cost the same regardless of the color. Therefore, that only leaves the argument that you have to organize your paint inventory and probably add a couple of extra paint lockers.

5. Of particularly prime importance in color coding are lines that are not hazardous – such as potable water. If it’s my plant, I want proof positive that I can visually check and make damn sure that I know first-hand exactly where ALL my potable water lines are, where they are going, where they are coming from, and everything that is tied-in to them. I perceive that you propose to identify only those lines that transport hazardous fluids and I “paint” that as short-sightedness (please pardon my pun in trying to make my point).

I have other views, but the above are the obvious ones that come to mind immediately. I hope my experience can help you out.

 

[toothless]

I agree with a color-coded system. I'm not sure if any standards exist. I remember reading that one group, may the state department of health and services (or something like that) wanted us to paint our potable water lines yellow. All of the industry around here objected to that and few complied. In our plant, we paint the natural gas lines yellow.

Unless you can find otherwise, I suppose it is up to each plant to decide what color to paint which lines (service).

 

[cub3bead]

Try ANSI/ASME A 13.1 for intitial guidance.

Or Eng-Tips thread thread190-95254

Red is normally reserved to identify fire water lines.

 

[SJones]

British Standard BS 1710

Steve Jones
Materials & Corrosion Engineer

http://www.pdo.co.om/pdo/

 

[mrtangent]

Thanks for the responces.

 

[MedicineEng]

I do agree with Montemayor (actually I do agree with him 99%of the times)and this is not exception, but I have some remarks to do. In our plant we do have a color code that identifies virtually all liquid and gas lines. This gives that we have a colour code with over 25 different colours and colour combinations (between inlets and returns). I find this real hard to manage and I believe that nobody will remember what all colours mean. Besides that, it is quite costly to maintain all this painting since we are speaking in overall of kilometers of pipelines. Furthermore, with the increasing use of stainless steel pipes, the protective function of the paint disppears and "only" remains the safety as Montemayor noted it.
In the past few years we are investing more in labelling since it is easier to maintain. But I defend that not everything should be labelled. In fact now we have more like an hybrid system, where we use paint in some cases and labeling in others. If you go for the painting, which I recomend in some areas, I would suggest and if you have a lot of fluids to not make like we did (trying to have a colour code for each of one of them). Instead, try to group them in classes. For instance, I don't have all colour code that we use here in my head, but I do know that if I see a red pipe it is fire network (foam or water), a blue that is potable water and a violet one is a warning sign that it runs something hazardous (and around here we have 3 different combinations with violet).
Sorry for the long post.

Montemayor, welcome back I was not hearing form you for a long time.

 

[Montemayor]

As MedicineEng points out with clear examples, the quantity of the different colors and number of different streams can quickly get out of hand in a large or complex plant. In fact, this "explosion" of different colors can have the exact opposite effect of what one is trying to accomplish: quickly and accurately identify potential safety hazards.

What I've done in the past is limit my colors to a maximum of 5 to 10. If I have other classes of hazards, I use plastic adhesive color tape and apply it in a spiral. This technique identifies another class and gives more variety and ability to remember the type of hazard and fluid. The spiral color tape also works very well with insulated, jacketed pipes.

I also quickly found that it is folly to try to identify every line or conceivable hazardous fluid throughout the entire plant. I reduced the quantity of identified fluids to around 10 - 15 and used solid colors as well as spiral tape. I couldn't remember more than that quantity.

 

[Rob99]

Most of the pipe color systems I have encountered have used the KISS strategy, which gives a small number of colors. Key ones are process lines (chemicals), gases, utilities, potable water and fire water.

Color coding does not eliminate the need for line labeling.

Color coding does not reduce the steps needed for line identification before authorizing maintenance. During the initial painting, it is a critical quality control factor to positively verify correct color and labeling before the job is signed off as complete. I am acquainted with fatal accidents with one of the root causes being miss-colored and labeled ines.

In addition to the standards the others mentioned, doesn't OSHA also have requirements for color coding and/or labeling of lines?

 

[MJCronin]

Rob99....

OSHA kind of indirectly endorses the ASME/ANSI color coding scheme for identification of hazards.

In an August 1998 letter, OSHA states:

"Section 5(a)(1) of the OSHAct:

"Each employer shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.""

After discussing protection from burns, uUnder this general guideline, OSHA then states:

"Also, ANSI A13.1-1975, "Scheme for the Identification of Piping Systems," issued by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers2, is enclosed. This standard specifies the identification of the contents of piping systems on the basis of legends and color to warn personnel of outstanding hazards inherent in the materials involved."

Remember, all of these rulles are written by and for lawyers.......not engineers...!!

See this link

http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=INTERPRETATIONS&p_id=22617

This article is also useful.....

http://www.plumbingengineer.com/pdf/pe/articles/0301PE65.PDF

-MJC