Colorado Springs, Colo., USA, December 18, 2019 – We had many excellent entries this year and these five stood out in their categories. The annual Platinum Pipe Award recognizes excellent piping and ducting system modeling using AFT software. All winners won a $500 Amazon gift card and $2,000 in software credit for their company. 

Below are the winners and condensed descriptions of their projects.

Those who receive the AFT Pipeline monthly newsletter will see expanded case studies and the detailed models for each of the four winning projects as well as two projects who received Honorable Mentions. 

Most Interesting Model

• Ross Haimes (Hatch, United Kingdom)  

AFT Impulse, Sea Water Injection system 

A water Injection system off the coast of Brazil transfers water through 12” subsea flowlines to wellhead platforms which are located approximately 4 and 5 km from the Floating Production Storage & Offloading (FPSO) respectively. A dynamic study on the water injection system performed in 2010 identified issues related to waterhammer in the main process and subsea flowlines which have not been resolved. Waterhammer/liquid surge effects can cause high transient pressures in specific local areas due to the interaction of surge waves propagated through and reflected from the various pipelines, valves and fittings in the system. On a complex water injection system, overall assessment of the entire system considering all scenarios with the potential to generate water hammer effects is essential and can produce counter-intuitive results. The water hammer analysis study has been performed to assess the entire produced water and water injection system for surge pressures resulting from the most onerous credible valve closure scenarios.

• Bernard Muller (MegChem, South Africa)  

AFT Fathom & AFT Impulse, Crude and slop transfer pipelines

This model focuses on crude and slop transfer pipelines in South Africa. Overfill protection will be installed on various tanks in the Tank Farm of the client. This will involve the addition of motor operated valves (MOVs) on the inlet to each of the tanks. If these MOVs are closed whilst Crude is being transferred to the tanks via the 120 km transfer pipeline, it will cause a surge pressure which can potentially exceed the design pressure of the pipeline. Similarly, if slop is transferred from the plant to the storage tanks (2 km pipeline), a surge pressure will also be created in the slop transfer line. A surge analysis was performed in AFT Impulse on the crude and slop transfer systems to determine what the closing times of the MOVs should be to prevent the pipeline design pressure from being exceeded.

Correlation to Test/Data 

• Rupesh Soni (Stone Oil & Gas, Canada)

AFT Impulse, Mining processing plant return water

A mining processing plant return water (run‐off of tailings deposition and rainwater) is discharged from the Tailings Management Facility (TMF) to balance the overall water level of the TMF. This return water is pumped via a pipeline from the TMF to the ocean outfall diffuser from a barge mounted pumping system. The purpose of the steady state simulation is to generate a process datasheet for return water Booster Pumps, return water Booster Pumps pressure control valve, and other booster station instrumentation (e.g. flow meter, pressure transmitters / gauges) based on the steady state hydraulic model. The simulation was then used to analyze transient casesto ensure the Maximum Allowable Operating Head was not reached.  The pipeline steady state simulation model was benchmarked against reported client plant data. The steady state simulation model for return water pipeline was built in AFT Impulse simulation software.

Operational Benefits & Sustainability

• Maren Deal (Brown and Caldwell, United States) 

AFT Arrow, Wastewater Treatment Plant Reliability and Process Improvements

Brown and Caldwell was hired to design the reliability and process improvements at a 64 million gallons per day (MGD) wastewater treatment plant. This project is following the progressive design-build procurement method and includes improving the secondary treatment processes at the plant by replacing aging equipment and improving plant efficiency and operations. This includes upgrades to multiple process units at the plant including the aeration tanks and blowers. The aeration tanks are part of a secondary biological nutrient removal process that uses the microorganisms that naturally occur in wastewater to biodegrade the organic matter in the wastewater. AFT Arrow was used extensively for the operation’s optimization, design, and planning for the upgrades to this aeration system at the plant.