Last Wednesday, we had some students visit our office for a job shadow. We got a chance to show them some of our projects and workflow in the Natural Gas Industry, where we provide Engineering and Design services. Over the years we have worked at implementing new technology to improve our Engineering and Design processes for our customers. The students got a chance to observe and experiment with some of our newest technology, 3D scanning, something we've been using for a couple years now. We perform our own scans and create point clouds to be used in AutoCAD. This allows for accurate depictions of real life, current conditions. We've recently started implementing Virtual Reality. In this video, you can see one of our students “virtually” visiting our most recent job site.

Process Pipeline Services has continued work on a large legacy natural gas site. Using an 3D scan, we have been able to create a 3D model in CAD that accurately represents true locations, sizes, and arrangements. We had out of date documents that portrayed much of the existing above, and below grade piping, but it was not to scale. By having a better understanding of how the above grade piping truly lays out, we were able to make educated assumptions on the below grade piping. We are now able to move forward with confidence of proper piping locations.

Process Pipeline Services has been working on a large legacy Natural Gas site for several years now. Many of our tasks have involved upgrading the existing piping infrastructure to meet newer regulations. This has been a lot of work as much of the existing infrastructure is old and undocumented. A lot of our effort has gone into locating and identifying the existing utilities above and below grade.

Our most recent task is to identify, locate, and document some existing piping and piping components as as-built drawings. The drawings will be used for asset management and demolition. The best and most efficient way of doing this was using 3D scanning.

By creating a 3D scan of the existing piping, PPS can draw the piping and components relative to there actual locations within the site. PPS is also able to accurately locate buildings and other site features. When planning demolition of existing piping, it is important to fully understand the impact the work could and will have on the site, and 3D scanning was the most efficient and cost effective way to do this.

Thirty years before the Revolutionary War, Faneuil Hall was established to provide Boston area farmers a place to sell their fruits and vegetables. The Faneuil Hall market area, today, one of Boston’s most popular tourist attractions, served as a produce distribution center until 1968, when the New England Produce Center was built in Chelsea, MA.

The New England Produce Center is the largest privately-owned terminal market in the country. New England Produce Center supplies fresh fruits and vegetables; and agriculturally related items, to wholesalers, retailers and food service customers serving the more than eight million people located from Connecticut in the South, to the Canadian border in the North, and all the Maritime Provinces of Canada in the East, to Albany, New York in the West.

The facility consists of 128 store units, 24 feet wide by 100 feet long.  At one point, early in its history the rail cars would off load onto the platforms, now the platforms are serviced by trucks. The truck loading platforms are situated at the front and rear of each unit and are 15 feet wide and completely covered. 

For years each customer gas meter was located inside each store unit. Under new gas requirements to be met by the end of calendar year 2018, Process Pipeline was requested to evaluate the feasibility of relocating the meters to a common meter bank outside the store units and come up with a design for the new supply header for each unit.

The four buildings were modified in so many ways over the years. We found meters under stairwells, in closets, behind walls, inside coolers, etc. It was a true puzzle. There was no real solution to install the new pipe headers within the buildings without disrupting the existing store owners.

Our only solution was the simplest and it protected the pipes from possible forklift strikes. Install the headers above the loading dock canopy.

PPS has always tried to improve its products and services by implementing new engineering and design tools. This has been happening since their beginning when PPS implemented 3D CAD software, knowing it would result in the best deliverables for their clients.  To this day they still use AutoCAD Plant 3D, AutoCAD Civil 3D, and several other 3D and rendering software’s. This helps them handle multiple engineering and design disciplines as well as multiple design and presentation requests.

Not satisfied with “good enough” PPS is still looking for ways to better deliver the designs and improve their work flows. Recently they have taken advantage of 3D scanning. This tool helps them with their in-filed data collection. Nearly every project relies heavily on some type of existing condition information. This could include existing plan sets, in-field measurements, photo’s or sketches. The problem is that all these leave room for human error or misrepresentation of the existing conditions.

3D scanning has helped PPS reduce the errors and misrepresentations that come with traditional data collection methods. By using millions of points collected by the scanner, they can create point clouds which can be imported into AutoCAD. This allows their CAD users the ability to design around existing conditions, representing real life relationships between existing and proposed environments. The result is an accurate 3D CAD model used for creating existing conditions and proposed designs. This gives PPS the ability to quickly produce full proposed and as-built drawing sets.

Did you know that Process Pipeline Services (PPS) was formed over 10 years ago? PPS was created by natural gas industry professionals who wanted to help utility companies succeed. Collectively, the team has decades of experience with transmission distribution, metering, pressure regulations, code compliance, project engineering, CAD design, instrumentation, and system analysis. Our extensive experience provides our clients with outstanding professional services from initiation to start-up to final completion.

From its inception, PPS has been committed to providing quality engineering services to the natural gas industry. Our goal is to maintain an outstanding record of service through our experienced staff and to offer our clients unmatched resources. We understand that success relies heavily on our alignment with the client’s goals and objectives.

PPS does this all by offering comprehensive, customized support for projects of all types and sizes related to the natural gas industry. Our engineers consult closely within the office to ensure that relevant experiences and skills are applied to each client’s situation. Our expertise results in reduced project ramp times, more effective anticipation of potential trouble areas, smoother project phase transitions and the ability to successfully meet project goals.

About a month ago we talked about a heater replacement we were working on. Knowing we would need some solid as-built data, a 3D scan was done of the existing conditions to assist in a new design. By using the 3D scan data, we were able to create a Point Cloud that was then placed directly into AutoCAD. This allowed us to create a 3D model in CAD that accurately represented the existing conditions. We have been able to proceed with greater confidence in how the existing conditions of the facility were represented. This was crucial because a good portion of the existing piping is going to be demolished, and the new design will need to tie into what is left. We have found the design flow to be much smoother than previous projects where we had used the traditional tape and sketch method

A recent project we were engaged to tackle involved the replacement of an existing water bath heater. The existing heater had reached its age and capacity. The major difficulty with the project was the available space and the requirement for possible future demands.  As part of the design, the client requested, the option of installing a possible second heater to meet a feasible future demand in flow capacity. The new heater 30ft x 120-inch OD, has a capacity of 8,500-Mscfh and 20-inch pipe connections.

An existing bridge, with a 2-inch gas line crossing, is in need of replacement. How do you address the need for a temporary gas line crossing over a river, while the bridge is under construction? It always comes down to feasibility, construction space requirements, and the inability to shut down the gas line during construction. In this situation, you think outside the box. For this application, never done before, we designed for a 180-ft temporary aerial line crossing. Based upon the flow rate and pressure requirements, we were able to use a 1-inch internal diameter CNG flexible hose, rated for 5000 psig. The installation is similar to the installation of electrical utility lines, using a ½” diameter messenger cable to support the high-pressure hose and double lashing wire to secure the hose to the messenger cable.

PPS has been designing and managing Horizontal Directional Drill (HDD) projects for use in the natural gas industry for years. HDD is a process that helps overcome many issues associated with open-cut trench installation. HDD is well suited for roadways with many existing utilities, or high traffic volumes. It is also perfect for river and railroad crossings. PPS recently designed a HDD for a client that crossed under the Merrimack River and the Pan Am railroad. The HDD design was to connect a proposed sanitary pump station to the Town’s sanitary treatment facility. The project involved a 1,300 ft bore, for two 8” HPDE pipes to be pulled at the same time 30 ft below the Merrimack River. The HDD driller was also required to fill the annular space around the pipes with grout under the zone of influence of the railroad. 

The project required the HDPE pipe to be butt fusion welded. The fusion process creates a bead on the inside and outside of the pipe. Because sanitary pipe requires a smooth wall connection on the inside, a special tool is used to remove the inside bead from the pipe.

There is a lot that goes into the design of an HDD for sanitary systems due to its limited line and grade specifications, but it was the perfect application for the force main.

PPS has always been committed to keeping up with useful technology. When PPS was first formed, it was decided that all design work would be done in 3D. To this day we us AutoCAD Plant 3D for all of our piping designs. This gives us an advantage as we are easily able to detect potential conflicts in our proposed designs. We are also able to better understand the logistics and constructability before construction even begins. These photos give an example of a complex piping arrangement. In this particular case, 3D modeling was necessary to prove our design.

PPS is currently working on a project involving a heater replacement. We knew there was some existing equipment that needed to be demolished and then retrofitted for our new design. Previously, we would have sent a team out into the field to take measurements and create field sketches. Combine that with a series of photos, and that’s what we would have used to create an existing conditions 3D model and plan. This procedure; which is common practice in most engineering and design disciplines; often introduces human error. For this project though, we decided to perform a 3D scan. This captured a very accurate representation of the existing condition, and allowed us to create a more accurate existing conditions drawing. By reducing the human error, this project is running much smoother than others in the past.

Process Pipeline Services strives to offer our clients a diverse array of services. While we primarily focus on engineering, we also have extensive experience with CAD software, 3D modeling, and color renderings. We use 3D scanning to speed up the 3D modeling process which allows us to generate high quality renderings quicker than traditional methods. One of our most recent renderings involve a proposed Gas Vault location. The client needed to show the city planning board that a proposed gas vault would not be an “eye soar” to the existing neighborhood. Our rendering was critical in demonstrating our client’s intentions to create an appealing space that doesn’t bring attention to the vault.