Pipe Stress Engineering at a Plant 2

[Pumprin]

Hi all,

I have been working for an industrial plant for about a year now as a plant engineer. I frequently come across projects where I have to input piping attached to mechanical equipment. Our process is generally the following: sketch a pipe drawing, give sketch to drafter, and install piping.

Since we don't have any stress engineers, we generally just use our best judgement and put pipe supports where we think is necessary. When we have large steam lines, we usually just farm the stress analysis out to engineering firms.

With that being said, would it be a good idea to purchase Peng's Stress Engineeering book as well as research other documents to perform my own pipe stress analysis for mechanical equipment (i.e. pumps, tanks)? We don't have any pipe stress software/stress engineers, so would this idea be a waste of time, or would I be able to perform approximate hand calcs from researching on my own?

 

[XL83NL]

Excellent book, excellent idea. IMHO.
It will not only increase your skills, you'll also be able to check the outsourced work, which kinda is important.

Apart from Peng's book, get Kellogg, a copy of your design code (caus that ultimately defines the requirements), and Kannappan.
I found Kannappan to be more basic, and old (but still up2date since Newton still defines gravity), and peng to be more specific, but also broader, aimed at current standards and technology. Kellogg is from the pre computer era, but he came up with a lot of rules that are still today's basis.
There are dozens of interesting books more, but these will be best at the pipe stress engineering part, I think.

However, current programs are so advanced, that there are no easy ways to quickly hand check a complex piping system. The books however give you the right tools to help determining the rubbish from the right, and help getting basic understanding. Computer programs should never replace rational thought and standard methods, they should always be a tool for the engineer.

 

[Pumprin]

XL86NL,

Thanks, I needed some positive reinforcement on this subject. I've read some past threads saying that you bascially need a senior stress engineer to progress in this trade. So for right now I'm going to try to learn as much as I can on my own at this current time.

 

[dhengr]

Pumprin:
By all means get a few text books on Pipe Design and Stress Analysis, along with texts on Engineering Mechanics and Strength of Materials. These are basic books for almost any kind of engineering involving stress analysis. And, by all means, do some self study to better your engineering abilities in these areas. You should be doing this type of study in any case, on your own, if you wish to grow as an engineer and if you want your knowledge base to grow. You should not be guessing at the kinds of problems you are dealing with, you could hurt someone for any number of reasons. Find someone who will mentor you on some of these kinds of problems and engineering in general, maybe through a Professional Engineering organization, maybe ASME, which would benefit you also. Ask your company/boss to pay for, allow you to take, some short courses in some of these subjects. You should want to grow, in good part, through your own efforts.

 

[Pumprin]

dhengr,

Thanks for your advice. I would only be using my knowledge for basics on non-critical service applications where there would otherwise only be rule of thumb engineering. Our senior engineers generally know when to farm out the critical services to engineering firms that specialize in stress analysis.

Training is usually hard to come by here, so self-study is my main method for now to get some fundamentals.

 

[kingnero]

there's also the antaki book, which covers the fundamentals and is very understandable.

 

[XL83NL]

Understanding pipe stress (beam theory) starts with understanding piping engineering and basic mechanics.
- For piping engineering, Antaki is a nice one, Nayyar provides a very comprehensive work (2800 pages or so), Spielvogel is more geared towards pipe stress and is also fundamental, Ellenberger is a nice one too. Boyle's book on design of piping systems (university of Strathclyde)
- For mechanics, see e.g. Gere & Timoshenko. I'd also recommend Roarks's formula's for stress & strain.
... the lists go on ....

If you're in for pipe stress, of course you need to understand the basics. Having a mentor is a good idea, but you don't seem to have one.
Talk to the guys who do the outsourced pipe stress work; in the end, you pay them, so you may expect some amount of knowledge-transfer.
If you show interest in their work, I'm sure they'll be happy to explain some things to you

Given the OP's original question and assuming he has (a few) basics on piping and mechanics, starting with Peng isn't that bad at all.