Piping systems we often encounter in our lives, whether in the office, buildings, power plants, offshore plants, and so forth. Pipes can also easily be found on the construction of a fertilizer factory, or in refineries processing crude oil, both for the processing of oil on land and at sea.
Most often we find and see is the pipelines system to deliver water to the houses made almost entirely of metal and sewerage pipes from plastics material or also commonly called Polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Pipe has certain size, ranging from the smallest with diameter of ½ inch to an enormous size so that people can enter into it, that is a pipe with a diameter of 72 inches or approximately 1.8 meters.
In general, pipe materials that are widely used for piping and its components are divided into two main categories namely:
- Metallic pipe material
- Non-metallic pipe material
Especially for metallic pipe material, this pipe material can be subdivided into two main groups namely Ferrous and Non-Ferrous pipe material, including nickel, alloys, copper and aluminum. Finally, from the manifold types of ferrous materials, the pipe material can again be divided into two general categories:
- Wrought iron, cast iron
- Steel
Almost all pipe materials are widely used in oil and gas industry is made of steel, with the following main characteristics:
- Chemical: major elements (iron for Ferrous Metal), alloying elements (nickel, chromium, etc.), impurities, and others.
- Physical properties; density, modulus of elasticity, coefficient of thermal expansion, and others.
- Micro Structure: atomic structure, phase metallurgy, type and grain size.
- Mechanical Properties: strength (yield strength, ultimate strength, elongation) and toughness.