Sustain Load in Piping System

Sustain load is the load experienced by the installation of piping system continuously. This load is combination of the load caused by internal pressure and weight load. In the all of piping system, pipe is designed to be able to withstand weight loads of fluid, insulation, components, and structure of the pipe itself. All of the weight loads are then distributed to the pedestal component or support, so it must be done also on support design of piping system that can support the weight load. Simple method to calculate the stress and the load on the support (pedestal) is by modeling the pipe as a beam with uniform load distribution along the dimension of the pipe.

Modeling support type to withstand weight loads are part of the pipe stress analysis on the piping system. In general there are two type of support which is used in the piping system, they are simple support and fixed support. But in reality, support condition generally is a simple support that fixed on the one part, so that the maximum stress that occurs can be calculated using equation as follow:

σ = W L2 / 8Z

Where:
σ          = stress (Pa)
W        = weight of the piping system (Newton)
L          = length of pipe (m)
Z          = inertia of the pipe (m4)

Weight load experienced by the piping system can be classified into two types as follow:
-          Live Load
Live load includes weight of fluid flowing through the piping system or other fluid used for testing the piping system

-          Dead Load
Dead load includes the weight of the components of the piping system, insulation, and permanent weight acting on the piping system.