[vargen]

Hi, I’ve been monitoring the forums occasionally, and finally decided to join up.

I have no engineering or technical background, my roots lie more in 3D digital drawing. I am creative (though unfortunately not always inspired) and can think logical.

Some months ago an acquaintance of mine talked to me about Piping Design, and that it’s an interesting area. He advised me to do a course in PDMS, start reading up about the theory, etc. So I followed his advice. I did a course in PDMS, it was interesting and not complicated to understand (I have experience with other 3D software), and I enjoyed it. Then I started reading two books:

First I read “Pipe Drafting and Design (second edition)” by Roy A. Parisher. It was an interesting read, not too difficult to understand, but I immediately started to wonder how important it is to learn how to draw piping drawings by hand on paper. Because he also explains how to draw those very same drawings in Autocad. So, I think it will be a smart move if to start a course about technical drawing in Autocad to get the basics down.

The second book, which I’m halfway through, is “Process Plant Layout and Piping Design” by Roger Hunt. Now, this is a little more complicated for me. He explains how different components of a plant design function, gives examples and rules of placement, etc. About 50% I understand with my non-technical background, but some things are just too complicated for me without knowing more about the general area. The result is I often close the book thinking “why am I reading this at this point in time?”

Now, the area of Piping Design seems very interesting to me, but also confusing because I don’t really know how I should proceed from this point on. I read many stories about how in the past a person would not actually start out as Piping Designer, instead they’d be drafted from “technical school” by a company, and would only become a Piping Designer after many years of experience. Now, with modern computer programs, the need to compress time and budget, etc. it seems that a company is immediately looking for a “qualified” Piping Designer. But, like in any area of expertise, how does one become qualified without experience? I am 33 years old at the moment, already made schooling and career mistakes in the past, so I want to do it right this time and really get something going.

By the way, I’m living in the south of Brazil at this moment, but I’m moving back to my home country the Netherlands early next year.

[Anton Dooley]

I had this same question on LinkedIn, so I want to bump this back to the top!

[Ted Sabinas]

I wanted to add to this in case any more new piping designers are looking here:

In addition to what JOP posted.

Read/Contact the manufacturers. The egineers will provide you with a cut sheet or vendor doc or whatever term that company uses. That’s nice but you want to find the I&O (Installation/Owner’s)Manual. For most items they are available on line, if not contact the manufacturer, they are usually happy to send you one.

Ask questions, it’s much better to go to a more experienced piping designer, swallow your pride and say you don’t understand something vs sitting in a model review and have a client tear apart your model because it cannot be done that way.

Keep in mind it’s the engineer’s job to come up with the concept (what size pump is needed, pipe size, etc), it’s the piping designers job to 1st make sure what the engineer suggests makes sense and then to make sure that concept can work in the real world. Meaning we have to look at fabrication, installation, construction, maintainability of the systems. Not just put together a pretty 3D model.

Know things are going to change and usually at the worse possible time. Develop and effective change management system so you can handle those changes smoothly without sending the whole project into a tailspin.

Go on site visits whenever you can. It’s one thing to model a 42″ compact expanding gate valve with a stem 12′ tall and a 2′ tall actuator on top, it is something else to see it. And something else entirely to watch them install one. One week on site is worth more than all the book reading that can be done.

Work closely with the other discipline engineers. Piping designers don’t just worry about piping, we have to worry about and understand supports and stress and electrical and instrumentation and weather in the area and geotech reports and frostlines and….

[Anton Dooley]

Good comments @coffeedrinker88

Any of the senior guys out there should try make sure that they are available to more junior pipers, as mentors.

Question for the more junior guys:
What is your experience of getting senior pipers to mentor and help you?

[Author]

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