Design Services

Why is it important to have a competent piping designer?

Piping Design is a huge part of any process plant. It is a big part of material purchase and man-hour requirements, and any weak link in a piping circuit can have drastic and long-lasting effects on the plant and on the community. Piping design interacts with almost every other discipline in the project. For this and many other reasons it is important for your company to employ competent designers who know how to use software effectively and correctly. The Piping Designer role in projects and in project development is changing rapidly and has a large impact on the overall project budget.  Increasingly, piping designers are not only designing pipe using best practices, they are also responsible for creating data-centric, spec-driven models in a 3D CAD environment.  They must leverage the developing powerful software, as well as their own piping knowledge to create vast databases containing pertinent project and component-specific information. Productivity and deliverables are paramount in today’s market, and clients expect projects to be prompt and correct in all aspects. Many deliverables can be auto-generated by the program, if the data is entered correctly. There are 3 core competencies for a SIA Piping Designer:

1. CAD Software Knowledge 

Designers are responsible for modeling correctly. Oftentimes pipers proceed with incorrect data. The errors in modeling do not show up until the deliverables are being generated by the designer or a fellow team member and prepared for sending to the client. Bill of materials, isometrics, spool drawings, and other deliverables are expected by the client to be generated automatically, quickly and accurately. “No touch ISOs” is the norm. The piping designer is ultimately responsible for ensuring the model accuracy. Incorrect models cause problems that have a ripple effect across the project. Manually editing BOM’s, MTO’s, and ISO’s is very costly, especially for large projects. It is of paramount importance that a capable piping designer is aware of the significance of modeling accuracy, championing model accuracy with other members of the piping department team.

2. Cross Discipline Understanding/Familiarity

Piping Design is an integral discipline, interacting with every other discipline in the project. Throughout the project, piping designers interact with other team members and discuss a range of design-related issues. Piping designers must have a working knowledge of other crucial pieces of equipment in order to collaborate with other discipline-specific team members on initial designs.  Examples of cross-discipline understanding are:

Instrumentation - Understanding different instrumentation and how it physically connects to the piping system. The varied types of instrumentation that have direct impact on the process include: temperature indicators, pressure-measuring devices, flow meters, level sensors, etc.  All of these pieces of instrumentation connect to the piping circuit in different ways. A flow meter, for example, needs roughly five pipe diameters of distance upstream to ensure laminate flow into the meter.  A basic understanding of instrumentation and what it does are important parts of piping design.

Structural Connections - An awareness of structural components and best practices is very important for a Piping Designer. Minding the practical implications of design, structural connections often play a huge part in the viability of design. Piping Designers should design for all manners of structural conditions including: piping stresses, leakage at joints, excessive stresses in restraining elements, vibrations in process fluid, thermal expansion of pipe, excessive heat build-up (exposing stress elements to temperatures outside their design limits), pipe sag, etc.  Piping designers should be aware of the many types of structural supports in their arsenal including: anchors, dummy legs, hanger rods, guides, etc.  Ultimately, structural design is not best suited to the Piping Designer; however, awareness of its importance is very beneficial as iterations of the design continue over the project life cycle.

3. Mechanical Aptitude

The biggest challenge facing a piping designer is the "construct-ability" of their designs. Unlike P&ID, or electrical drawings, which are schematic diagrams with little relation to the physical world, piping designs are built.  A construction worker/crew physically builds the piping circuit or system. This adds human complexity to design and must be accounted by the designer.  A good Piping Designer always asks the question, "How is this going to be built?"  Important considerations for the Piping Designer that do not directly relate to piping are: excavating procedures and techniques, common construction techniques, welding techniques and limitations, hoisting piping segments, placing piping segments, work truck and crane locations, heavy equipment priority moving and setting, etc. These are mostly human issues, but they relate closely to piping design.