Automation and Optimization of the Design Parameters in Tactical Military Pipeline Systems.

摘要

Tactical military petroleum pipeline systems will play a vital role in any future conflict due to an increased consumption of petroleum products by our combined Armed Forces. The tactical pipeline must be rapidly constructed and highly mobile to keep pace with the constantly changing battle zone. Currently, the design of these pipeline system is time consuming and inefficient, which may cause shortages of fuel and pipeline components at the front lines. Therefore, a need for a computer program that will both automate and optimize the pipeline design process is quite apparent. These design needs are satisfied by developing a software package using Advance Basic (IBM DOS) programming language and made to run on an IBM-compatible personal computer. The program affords the user the options of either finding the optimum pump station locations for a proposed pipeline or calculating the maximum operating pressures for an existing pipeline. By automating the design procedure, a field engineer can vary the pipeline length, diameter, roughness, viscosity, gravity, flow rate, pump station pressure, or terrain profile and see how it affects the other parameters in just a few seconds. The design process was optimized by implementing a weighting scheme based on the volume percent of each fuel in the pipeline at any given time. (KR)