A Verification Study of ASCE Recommended Guidelines for Seismic Evaluation and Design of "On Pipe-Way Piping" in Petrochemical Plants

In practice, mostly for simplicity of evaluation and design processes, the seismic analyses of piping and the supporting pipe-ways are performed independently, without consideration of their interactions. This study focuses on how this interaction can affect the seismic behavior of the whole system. For this purpose the considered pipe-way structures have been assumed to support multiple pipes so that the weight of the piping can be in some cases more, and some cases less than 25% of the pipe-way structure to evaluate how the ASCE code recommendation for analyzing the piping and pipe-way separately or as a whole system is valid. The effects of piping end conditions on the system responses have been also discussed. Numerical results show that not only the weight percentage of piping but also the type of connection between pipes and the pipe-way structure and pipes dimensions supported on pipe-way are important factors affecting the whole system behavior and may cause the system conditions to be different form the code assumptions.