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Foundation Design Philosophy for Process Equipment 

Are you a young dynamic Civil Engineer,  just came out from the unversity and have started your career as Junior Design Engineer? Are you working in Oil & Gas, Petrochemicals refinery and Fossil Power Plant? Then you have reached at right place. In this web site I have explained the load calculation and basic concept of equipment foundation & structure design step by step. You can discuss this among your friends and with Lead/Supervisor Engineers.You can also create your own design spread sheet as I explained in this forum and discuss with Experienced senior Engineers before applying it to your project.

This site is generated based on my experiences in Civil Engineering design. You can write me back for any question regarding this.

This site has no commercial value and it is absolutely free.

If you go to any Petrochemical facilities, Refinery, Chemical Plant, Gas Development plant, LNG Plant or any Oil & Sand Plant, you will find most commonly the following equipment and structures:
  • Tall tower or vertical vessel resting on foundation and on structure.
  • Some Horizontal Drums or Horizontal vessels resting on foundation and on structure.
  • Some cooling system like Shell and tube Exchanger or Plate heat Exchanger  resting on foundation and on structure. You will also find Air fan Cooler which is most of the time is located on top of Pipe rack and some times on concrete foundation.
  • Different types of pumps - Low speed, medium speed and high speed with light weight to heavy weight resting on foundation.
  • A Tank Farm area, showing no. of tanks. If this is a LNG Plant, you will find Cryogenic tank to store liquid in sub-zero temperature.
  • Miscellaneous Static Equipment Skid, resting on concrete foundation.
  • Pipe rack, inside the process unit and as well as connecting  all the process units. Please remember that Pipe rack is the artery of a plant. These pipe racks carry all types of  pipes and electrical trays from one process unit to other process units. So whenever, you design a pipe rack , keep in mind the importance of its use.
  • Miscellaneous structures :  Control room (Mainly blast proof), Laboratory Buildings, Shed/shelter for different chemical skid, Equipment supporting structures etc.
  • Concrete sump, with or without baffle wall for storage water and chemicals. Sometimes these sumps are as big as pond.
  • Flare stack, far away from main process plant. Most of the cases stack height is 100 m. There are different types of stack supporting system. Most cases these are guided by 3 ropes at an angle of 60 degree to each other. If the stack height is less,  then stack may be a self supporting stack resting on a concrete foundation. If the stack is made up of FRP materials then a 3 legged structure is needed around the stack to hold this at proper position.
  • Big ponds for collecting rainwater and process water for evaporation. Hence, these ponds are called as Evaporation Pond. These are mainly earthen pond  with impermeable liner (Geo-textile liner) on all surfaces of the pond. This impermeable liner is very important to protect the ground water from contamination. If you would like to know more about rules and regulations of General Civil Works please click here and read all the directives.
In addition to that, you will find a cogeneration plant to generate process steam and power supply for the plant. In adjacent to this plant you will find different types of transformer for maintaining the plant voltage and also find a substation for power distribution. If you like to know more about substation equipment and structure please click here and read the documents specially 1724E-200 and 1724E-300.

 
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Disclaimer: This page is prepared based on experience on Civil Engineering Design. All definitions and most of the explanations are taken from different text books and international design codes, which are referenced in the contents. Any similarity of the content or part of with any company document is simply a coincidence. Subhro Roy is not responsible for that.