structural design of prefabricated mechanical equipment skids

[cbailey82]

Any guidance for design loads and criteria and/or tips to design equipment skids?
Any specific technical guidelines w/ minimum load requirements such as you find in ASCE 16?
cbailey

 

[r13]

A skid is to support equipment, which has weight and operation load, which you shall design for. Use ASCE7 for load combination and seismic design for the base support fasteners.

 

[dhengr]

Cbailey82:
The basic design criteria for an equipment skid is that it be able to carry the loads imparted on it during lifting, transport, installation and operation. These are highly dependent upon the equipment on the skid, so to that extent, you might talk with your client or the people who make the particular equipment for their guidance and requirements. The skid design and fab. is so dependent upon its supported equipment, handling methods and operational conditions that it would be very difficult to generalize or codify the exact loads and details. Except to say, that you should have the engineering knowledge, experience and judgement to figure this out without a cookbook to go by. Take a look at some plans and calcs. for existing skids as a starting point, look at some skid installations, and ask yourself, why did they do this or that. Certainly, following any good steel design code and generally sound engineering mechanics methods seems reasonable place to start. Having some knowledge about how these things are fabed. is helpful, and many times you will need to work with mechanical engineers, pipe stress engineers, etc. to nail down some of the mechanical details. Interacting with foundation engineers will also come into play.

 

[r13]

I misunderstood your role in the design process, but I couldn't have said better than dhengr. Make sure you know the equipment the skid is meant for, then start from there.