Colorado Springs, Colo., USA -- November 17, 2020 -- No longer will deadline-driven compromise limit a hydraulic design’s potential. In the November 2020 issue of Pumps & Systems Magazine, Nick Vastine, Applications Engineers with Applied Flow Technology, speaks to engineers about designing a piping system and the project priorities of being on-time and on-budget. 

More from the article:

While both facets are incredibly important, they (along with every other priority) are secondary to meeting the system’s design requirements. Whether there is a heat transfer requirement for reacting components, flowrate requirements for system supply, or hydraulic grade line (HGL) requirements to avoid elevation issues, a design is defined by its requirements.

It is a challenge to design a system which meets all its requirements. During the design phase of a system, hard engineering work like pulling product specifications, sizing equipment, and ensuring a conservative safety margin takes up much of the design process. All this work uses precious engineering time as deadlines slowly approach. This limited time pressures design choices, often leaving pipe size as an under-considered parameter.

Since pipe size generally informs the foundation of a design (informing velocities, pressure drop, equipment, fittings, costs), pipe size usually won’t get the attention it deserves. As any deviation in pipe size essentially resets much of the engineering work from the original pipe size, varying pipe size can be quite time consuming. However, exploring the implications of pipe size on system design, operation, and cost has huge potential to improve designs and approach an optimized system.

The article goes on to discuss:

• Why consider pipe size at all?
• A History Lesson
• Spreadsheets: The False Prophet
• The Rise of Modeling Software

  View the Digital Magazine