Advances in electrical heat tracing engineering reduce installed cost and improve reliability

Abstract

Newly developed engineering methods yield substantial improvement in total installed costs and system reliability for electrical heat tracing. By emphasizing engineering and planning for heat tracing very early in a project, timely power infrastructure design are provided. Based on information from the plot plans, P&ID's and line lists, better than 80% accurate electrical heat tracing designs are generated during the first few months of a project thus taking the risk out of the power and cost estimating processes. These estimates are then used to establish the power infrastructure requirements, including transformer sizing, feeders, panel design, the number of circuits, power connection locations, as well as the field inventory requirements. Detailed engineering is delayed until more accurate piping information is available. This design is now documented in a data base format containing all pertinent heat tracing installation and commissioning information hence obsoleting heat tracing isometrics. All necessary installation information, including power connection, tees and end termination locations are included in the database. The speed at which designs are produced allows the engineer to provide up-to-date field documentation as the piping is released for tracing thus including any field modifications. The following is a methodology to substantially reduce the total installed costs and improves the system reliability for an electrical heat tracing system.