Lecture

Pipe Support Span Calculation

Harish Toki
PURPOSE
Requirements of supports in piping system are:
• To carry the weight of the pipe, fittings, valves with / without insulation, with
operating / test fluid.
• To provide adequate stiffness to the piping against external loads such as wind
load, ice, snow, seismic load etc.
• To avoid overstressing of the piping material.
• To avoid sagging of pipe which creates draining problem.
• To control the thermal expansion / contraction in desired manner
• To withstand and dampen vibration produced by connected equipment such as
pump, compressor etc.
 Pipe Span
Typically piping is supported at regular intervals on steel supports embedded in
concrete foundation or directly on steel structure. The distance between
supports is the span. In Fluor, we calculate the support span considering pipe with one
end simply supported and other end is fixed.

Calculation of Max. span:

There are four main factors which affects the support span.
• Stress
• Deflection
• Natural Frequency

By relating natural frequency and deflection limitation, the allowable

span can be determined as the minimum of the calculated support spacing
based on stress and deflection.
Pipe Span based on Stress
The stresses are acting through the pipe wall at supports due to sustained load.
D - Pipe OD
• Pressure stress t - Corroded wall thickness
• Bending stress due to weight P - Max Pressure
• Local stresses at the point of support attachment M - Bending Moment
Z - Section Modulus
PD M Sh - Hot Allowable stress
  Sh
4t Z - Pipe Span
 - Unit weight of the pipe
w
wl
2 M M
M  For simply supported end

8 w
2 connection
wl M M
M  For fixed end 
12
2 connection
5 wl
M  For connection having one end simply supported &
48 other end fixed, average of above two equations
2
The Maximum span (based on Stress) is calculated PD 5wl
  Sh
using the equation 4t 48Z
Pipe Span based on Deflection
This is one of the key criteria for fixing the span.

By considering the simply supported beam with uniform load,

4
  5wl
384EI
By considering the fixed end beam with
uniform load,
4
  wl
384EI
In pipe analysis, we assume that the pipe is neither simply supported nor fixed
but it is in between these cases. So, the average of the above deflection is:
4
  wl
128EI
Normally, it is a practice to allow ½” deflection at the mid span. Hence using this as δ,
we can calculate the piping span.
Pipe Span based on Natural Frequency
This is one of the key criteria for fixing the span for Two-Phase lines

We know the Natural Frequency of a system,

1 g
f 
2 
Considering Natural frequency as 4 Hz (Refer Project Specification for the exact value),

  0.6"

By substituting the above in the following equation, we can calculate the span.
4
  wl
128EI
Example:
Pipe Span Chart - Fluor Practice
Pipe Span Chart - Fluor Practice

Allowable pipe span is based on insulated pipe filled with water,

12.5% mill tolerance and 1/16” corrosion allowance for carbon steel
pipe (A 53 Gr. B) at 650°F
Example:
Example:
Example:
Example: