A comparative study of the process industry pipe racks using Indian and American standards

Abstract

For any process industries like Power plant, Refineries, Food industries it is vital that the project must be backed by approved designs which must be economical. In any process industry, pipe racks are the most significant element as they transfer the materials between equipment and storage areas. Pipe racks play an important role in the proper functioning of the process industry plants. Their main function is to offer support to power cables, instrument cable trays and pipes in general. Sometimes pipe racks can also be used for offering support to mechanical equipment and vessels apart from valve control access platforms. One of the most important areas of design focuses on pipe racks and how diverse designing concepts can influence the end results that can be generated. As a general practice in pipe racks moment-resisting frames are provided in transverse directions which can cater for both the lateral loads as well as gravity loads. The lateral loads might as well be produced by seismic loads, pipe loads or wind loads. Longitudinal struts with a single braced bay are used for connecting the transverse frames. The purpose of this study is to find out the factors that influence the analysis of pipe racks along with estimating and analyzing the various design factors involved in the design of pipe racks. To achieve the purpose of this study, a pipe rack was modelled using STAAD.Pro and analyzed as per Indian and American standards. This study concluded a suitable design approach by establishing a conservative approach while designing the pipe racks by comparing Indian and American standards. As a result of the study, it is found that the members auto assigned by STAAD.Pro as per American code are comparatively lesser in weight against the members assigned as per Indian code. The findings of this study will serve as a guideline to choose the standards that can be followed for optimal analysis and design of pipe racks.