Process systems for the mining and petrochemical industry, combined firewater and potable water systems, and other complex, multiple-looped systems suplying many different users or pieces of equipment, present problems that are significantly different from the typical pump station, rising main and reservoir that is so common to water supply systems. In the past, many process systems were very short and confined to a small plant area, which often limited the severity of potential hydraulic transients. Now, typical mining process systems may be several kilometers long with flow rates of 15,000 m~3/hr, pumping heads of 100 meters, supply piping of 1000 mm diameter, and may contain very complex systems of piping within the process palnt itself. Pipes are not only underground, but on pipe racks, which means that the design of pipe supports must also be considered in the analysis. Several case studies are presented to illustrate the difficulties in the analysis of complex process systems and to offer some general guidelines to selecting the relevant cases that should be analyzed, how to recognize potential problems, and what mitigating measures are most likely to succeed which are within the client's budget. Finally, we discuss the determination of forces for design of pipe suports for systems with multiple-column separation and rejoining. Proper interpretation of analytical results becomes of paramount importance in providing the project with appropriate values for design. Some guidelines and methodology are outlined for determining what is fact and what is likely a figment of the numerical model.
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