LOADING PIPELINE DESIGN Pipe line mechanical design Introduction:

We calculated the pressure needed to transport a given volume of gas through a pipeline. The internal pressure in a pipe causes the pipe wall to be stressed, and if allowed to reach the yield strength of the pipe material, it could cause permanent deformation of the pipe and ultimate failure. Obviously, the pipe should have sufficient strength to handle the internal pressure safely. In addition to the internal pressure due to gas flowing through the pipe, the pipe might also be subjected to external pressure. External pressure can result from the weight of the soil above the pipe in a buried pipeline and also by the loads transmitted from vehicular traffic in areas where the pipeline is located below roads, highways, and railroads. The deeper the pipe is buried, the higher will be the soil load on the pipe. However, the pressure transmitted to the pipe due to vehicles above ground will diminish with the depth of the pipe below the ground surface. Thus, the external pressure due to vehicular loads on a buried pipeline that is 6 ft below ground will be less than that on a pipeline that is at a depth of 4 ft. In most cases involving buried pipelines transporting gas and other compressible fluids, the effect of the internal pressure is more than that of external loads. Therefore, the necessary minimum wall thickness will be dictated by the internal pressure in a gas pipeline.

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larger the pressure or diameter, the larger would be the wall thickness required. Higher strength steel pipes will require less wall thickness to withstand the given pressure compared to low-strength materials.

Piping design formula: BARLOWS EQUATION

When a circular pipe is subject to internal pressure, the pipe material at any point will have two stress components at right angles to each other. The larger of the two stresses is known as the hoop stress and acts along the circumferential direction. Hence, it is also called the circumferential stress. The other stress is the longitudinal stress, also known as the axial stress, which acts in a direction parallel to the pipe axis. Figure shows a cross section of a pipe subject to internal pressure. An element of the pipe wall material is shown with the two stresses and in perpendicular directions. Both stresses will increase as the internal pressure is increased. As will be shown shortly, the hoop stress is the larger of the two stresses and, hence, will govern the minimum wall thickness required for a given internal pressure.

Purpose of mechanical design:

The minimum wall thickness required to withstand the internal pressure in a gas pipeline will depend upon the pressure, pipe diameter, and pipe material. The
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Figure 6.1 Stress in pipe subject to internal pressure.

THICK-WALLED PIPES
Consider a thick-walled pipe with an outside diameter and inside diameter of , subject to an internal pressure of P. The greatest stress in the pipe wall will be found to occur in the circumferential direction near the inner surface of the pipe. This stress can be calculated from the following equation:

Where:

hoop or circumferential stress in pipe material P = internal pressure D = pipe outside diameter T = pipe wall thickness

Similar to Equation 6.1, the axial (or longitudinal) stress, , is given by the following equation: The pipe wall thickness is

Barlows equation is valid only for thinwalled cylindrical pipes. Most pipelines transporting gases and liquids generally fall in this category. There are instances in which pipes carrying gases and petroleum liquids, subject to high external loads, such as deep submarine pipelines, may be classified as thick-walled pipes. The governing equations for such thickwalled pipes are different and more complex.

Rewriting Equation 6.3 in terms of outside diameter and wall thickness, we get

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Simplifying further,

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E = seam joint factor, 1.0 for seamless and submerged arc welded (SAW) pipes. ) ( ) ( F = design factor, usually 0.72 for cross-country gas pipelines, but ( ) can be as low as 0.4, depending on class location and type of construction T = temperature derating factor = 1.00 for temperatures below 250F

In the limiting case, a thin-walled pipe is one in which the wall thickness is very small compared to the diameter . In this case is small compared to 1 and therefore, can be neglected in Equation 6.5. Therefore, the approximation for thin walled pipes from Equation 6.5 becomes

Which is the same as Barlows Equation 6.1 for hoop stress.

INTERNAL DESIGN PRESSURE EQUATION

We indicated earlier in this chapter that Barlows equation, in a modified form, is used in designing gas pipelines. The following form of Barlows equation is used in design codes for petroleum transportation systems to calculate wall thickness based upon given the allowable internal pressure in a pipeline, diameter, and pipe material.

P = internal pipe design pressure D = pipe outside diameter T = pipe wall thickness S = specified minimum yield strength (SMYS) of pipe material
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LOADING PIPELINE DESIGN Table 6.2 Pipe Seam Joint Factors

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The seam joint factor E used in Equation (6.8) varies with the type of pipe material and welding employed. Seam joint factors are given in Table 6.2 for the most commonly used pipe and joint types. The internal design pressure calculated from Equation is known as the maximum allowable operating pressure (MAOP) of the pipeline. This term has been shortened to maximum operating pressure (MOP) in recent years. Throughout this book we will use MOP and MAOP interchangeably. The design factor F has
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values ranging from 0.4 to 0.72, as mentioned earlier. Table 6.3 lists the values of the design factor based upon class locations. The class locations, in turn, depend on the population density in the vicinity of the pipeline.

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Table 6.3 Design Factors for Steel

Table 6.4 Factors

Temperature

Deration

CLASS LOCATION
Class 1 Offshore gas pipelines are Class 1 locations. For onshore pipelines, any class location unit that has 10 or fewer buildings intended for human occupancy is termed Class 1. Class 2 This is any class location unit that has more than 10 but fewer than 46 buildings intended for human occupancy. Class 3 This is any class location unit that has 46 or more buildings intended for human occupancy or an area where the pipeline is within 100 yards of a building or a playground, recreation area, outdoor theatre, or other place of public assembly that is occupied by 20 or more people at least 5 days a week for 10 weeks in any 12-month period. The days and weeks need not be consecutive. Class 4 This is any class location unit where buildings with four or more stories above ground exist. The temperature deration factor T is equal to 1.00 up to gas temperature 250F, as indicated in Table 6.4.

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2011 C: corrosion and mechanical allowances D: pipe OD M: minimum distance from inside crotch to end of miter There are three equations to utilize in the design process. Equation 3 is only applicable to single miters where the angle q is greater than 22.5. Equation 2 is to be used for single miters where the angle q is not greater than 22.5. When one wants to use multiple miters, the angle q must not be greater than 22.5 and one must use equations 1 and 2. The lesser value computed with those two equations is the maximum internal pressure allowed by the code. Then the length M must be calculated and applied to the end sections. Those equations are given in Table E.2.

Miters:
A miter is two or more straight sections of pipe matched to produce a change in direction. Most are familiar with the miter as the twin 45 cut that produces the square corner in a picture frame. One technique for designing miters, where they are allowed, is as. Figure shows the diagram of a miter and labels the symbols.

Where: : Effective radius of miter T: minimum thickness of miter pipe wall : angle of miter cut : angle of change in direction=2 : mean radius of pipe using nominal wall to calculate. E: efficiency
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TABLE E.2 Equations Utilized in the Design of Miters The value of R1 should meet some minimum for these miters to be in compliance with the code. There are two formulas for that value. The more general formula is found in B31.9 and is given as: where A has an empirical value per Table E.3. TABLE E.3 Empirical Value of A

Code B31.3 has a more rigorous requirement, giving the minimum value of R1 as a function of the thickness. This refinement has the effect of requiring R1 to be larger for thicker materials. The general formula is the same but substitutes a variable expression A for the 1 in the B31.9 formula. It is

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2011 A more unfortunate result is that the extrados gets thinner. This requires starting with thicker wall pipe to meet the same requirement as for straight pipe. But the question became: How much thicker? One result is that two of the codes give a recommendation to the reader of how much thicker one needs to start with, depending on the bend radius required. The shorter the radius desired, the greater the thickness. It was found that the extrados need not have the same thickness as that of straight pipe. The pressure requirements are not as great at that position. In addition, bending techniques improved to the point where there might be less thinning.

Bends
For many years the code requirement for the wall thickness of bends was simply that the thickness shall be the same as that required for straight pipe of the particular code. Given the general methods of bending that were prevalent, and often are still used today, this usually meant that one needed to start with a wall thicker than needed. Assuming that one starts with a straight piece of pipe, for the bend there will be different lengths for the different edges of the bend. These edges have names. Figure E.1 shows the net effect. One can see that the extrados will be longer and that the intrados will be shorter than the beginning length, which is the length of the centerline of the straight pipe. Since there is no new material added by the bending process and no transfer of material from one part of the pipe to the other, the net result is that the extrados gets thinner and the intrados gets thicker. This is a fortunate circumstance as the demands of pressure in the bend were found to need the thicker material at that intrados.

Figure E.1 Diagram showing bend terminology. It was also found that some techniques did not thicken the intrados enough to guarantee the margins that the codes required.
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LOADING PIPELINE DESIGN And a need developed to have a quantitative measure for both walls intrados and extrados. A mathematical technique to define those required wall thicknesses existed. Code B31.1, Code B31.3, and some of the bending standards have included it in their books. It involves the inclusion of a factor, one each for intrados and extrados, and including that factor in the straight wall thickness equation. Those factors are shown in Table E.1. TABLE E.1 Bend Factor

2011 S = allowable stress E = efficiency factor I = appropriate intrados or extrados factor y = factor from table

To calculate the wall thickness for either the intrados or extrados, use the appropriate factor in the following modified straight wall equation.

t = calculated required wall (note: allowances must be added) P = pressure

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