Section - 11A: Piping

Dead-legs
Pharmaceutical pipe dead-legs: what's that all
about?

Purified water (drinking water treated using million pound purification

plants) is frequently used in the pharmaceutical industry during the
manufacture of tablets and medicines. This water is distributed throughout
the manufacturing facility to points-of-use using high quality process
pipework. The installation of a pipe tee in this pipework often creates a
stagnant dead-leg zone. This dead-leg can contaminate the entire
distribution network resulting in lost production, contaminated product and
down time for cleaning.

Considerable basic research is required to address the lack of understanding

of this problem and to assist during design, manufacture, installation and
operation of these critical systems. Research work within the School of
Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at Dublin City University involves
the application of CFD software (Computational Fluid Dynamics) to the study
of pipe dead-legs. The outcome of this research will benefit designers of next
generation sterile and hygienic piping systems.

The formal definition of a pipe dead-leg as given by the Food and Drug
Administration (the FDA) is:

Pipelines for the transmission of purified water for manufacturing or final

rinse should not have an unused portion greater in length than 6 diameters
(the 6D rule) of the unused portion of pipe measured from the axis of the
pipe in use.
 Left: Velocity contours – Right: Computational grid.

The FDA suggest the above 6D rule will help prevent contamination:
however industrial experts are designing systems with dead legs limited to
3D or less. Some systems and fittings claim to have zero dead legs. The
result of this confusion is an escalation in design and manufacture cost
within an already highly expensive industry. Current research includes the
development of a CFD model of a pipe tee and the application of turbulent
models to analyse flow profiles within the tee branch (see illustration).
Recent results indicate that the 6D rule is indeed insufficient to prevent
stagnation and that areas exist within the branch of the tee which are
undisturbed by the turbulent flow in the main loop pipe. Future work will
involve the investigation of turbulence intensity and wall shear stress in the
near wall region, and close investigation of the viscous sub-layer.

Contact: Mr Brian Corcoran;

E-mail: Brian.Corcoran@dcu.ie