RE: FW: [Man.Distr]RE: Impressed vibration

From: <Steve>
Date: Mon Dec 29 2003 - 03:18:00 EST

Hi Sajit

if the temporary supports are doing the job of reducing movement, then you are moving in the right direction.
I saw a more extreme case in Indonesia some years ago. A 36" overland geothermal steam line ripped about six pipe supports out of the ground when it was livened. The quick solution was to box in the suspended supports and concrete them in their "natural" location. Subsequent stress analyses recommended minor changes, but were insignificant in terms of load adjustment, and expensive to do, so things were left as they were. If the small angle braces that you have added have stopped the vibration/strain problem, then it would appear that the problem may be more one of appearance than one of unsafe loads. When preparing your brief for the stress analysists, be sure to instruct them to analyse your temporary fix. I have a feeling they will say it is fine as a permanent fix if you add a stiffener/wear saddle at the contact points.
As for the cause of the excitation, you could spend a lot of investigation money here without achieving anything useful. I have to deal with a lot of poorly supported lines, and the only thing I know for sure is that if the spans are longer than "normal", a higher percentage will flap around. Maybe the minor volume change as they straighten and bend is sufficient to set them off; in your case, maybe condensate pooling; who knows? Yes, I have done the driving frequency thing; vane passing frequencies, Von Karman shedding etc etc. You do all this, then clamp the pipe which is what a pipefitter would have done anyway.

Chris will probably rip my head off over this.

My recommendation is to check that yout temporary fix is not causing unsafe stress levels, and to request how the fix can best be made permanent.

If you have some spare money, have a study done on the excitation source. For this type of report, I normally work on $US35,000/kg on the scales, but with packaging, unnecessary simulation printouts, superfluous appendices and covers removed. I would be interested to hear what $/kg you wind up with.

Cheers

Steve McKenzie

-----Original Message-----
From: Sajit Viswan [mailto:sviswan@tebodin.co.om] Sent: Monday, December 29, 2003 4:39 PM
To: Christopher Wright
Cc: PipingDesign. com (E-mail)
Subject: RE: FW: [Man.Distr]RE: [PipingDesign] Impressed vibration

Those are make shift arrangements of supports. They were put in because after the vibration incident it was noticed that some of the supports were ineffective (not taking the load). This must have been either due to lifting off by thermal (solar) expansion or by settlement. I have established what support has sunk by taking spot levels. The original supporting arrangement had 20 mm rods welded on top of sleeper top plates. The rods had to be removed to put in the plates.

That launcher route is the only export pipeline which cannot be disrupted. The plant is operating at threshold (at which there is no vibration (by feel and sound))flow rates with the makeshift arrangement of making all the supports effective by the shim plates.

For the long term solution we are currently seeking the help of the specialists to study the vibration source. I am currently investigating agencies who can do this reliably. Did send the problem to a few including LMNOeng, swri, DPS.

Sajit

-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Wright [mailto:chrisw@skypoint.com] Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2003 10:00 PM To: Sajit Viswan
Subject: RE: FW: [Man.Distr]RE: [PipingDesign] Impressed vibration

>There are no rubber pads, what you are seeing in the photo are 6 mm steel
>shim plates between 2 angle sections.

I couldn't tell from the picture. It still looks a bit makeshift. And it's still not clear that you've actually fixed the problem or simply made one of the symptoms harder to spot.

Christopher Wright P.E.    |"They couldn't hit an elephant at
chrisw@skypoint.com        | this distance"   (last words of Gen.
___________________________| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania 1864)
http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw

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