Determination and application of installation sequence of piping systems in cramped spaces of ships and offshore structures considering geometric relationship of pipe elements

Abstract

The outfitting design of ships and offshore structures is mainly undertaken in a restricted space. Pipes occupying a large portion of outfitting design are normally manufactured outside the shipyard. This complicated manufacturing process results in frequent delivery delays. Inevitable design modifications and material changes have also resulted in inefficient pipe installation works. In this study, an algorithm is proposed to systematically determine the pipe installation sequence. An accurate and fast algorithm to identify the geometric relationship of piping materials is presented. To improve the calculation efficiency, the interference is gradually examined from simplified to complicated shapes. It is demonstrated that the calculation efficiency is significantly improved with successive geometric operations such as back-face culling and use of bounding boxes. After the final installation sequence is determined, the entire installation process is visualized in a virtual reality environment so that the process can be rendered and understood for a full-scale model.