OIL AND GAS

PIPING CODES AND STANDARD

TOG
 Piping codes

• The following standards from the American

National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the
American Soc. of Mechanical Engineers
(ASME) specify wall-thickness requirements.
 ANSI/ASME
• ANSI/ASME Standard B31.1, Power
Piping. This standard applies to steam piping
systems.
• ANSI/ASME Standard B31.3, Chemical Plant
and Petroleum Refinery Piping. This standard
applies to major facilities onshore and
offshore worldwide.
• ANSI/ASME Standard B31.4, Liquid
Transportation Systems for Hydrocarbons,
Liquid Petroleum Gas, Anhydrous Ammonia,
and Alcohols.  This standard applies to
onshore oil pipeline facilities.
• ANSI/ASME Standard B31.8, Gas Transmission
and Distribution Piping Systems.
•  This standard applies to gas transmission,
gathering, and distribution pipelines onshore.
• In the U.S, piping on offshore facilities is
mandated by regulation to be done in
accordance with ANSI/ASME Standard B31.3.
• Most onshore facilities are designed in
accordance with ANSI/ASME Standard B31.4
or B31.8, depending on whether it is an oil or
gas facility respectively.
• Some companies use the more stringent
ANSI/ASME Standard B31.3 for onshore
facilities.
 Pipe materials - basics

• For petroleum applications, pipe materials that

meet American Petroleum Inst. (API), American
Soc. for Testing and Materials (ASTM), ASME, and
ANSI standards are used most often.
• All of these standards have very rigid design,
specification, chemistry, and testing
standardization and manufacturing requirements.
• Modern steel pipe manufactured to these exacting
standards assures both high quality and safety in
design.
• Steel pipe is available in a variety of
commercial sizes ranging from nominal 1/8 up
to 60 in. or greater. 
• The “nominal” commercial pipe sizes from 1/8
through 12 in. refer to the approximate ID
measurement of Schedule 40 or “standard”
wall, whereas nominal 14 in. and larger sizes
refer to the outside diameter.
• A variety of steel pipe sizes, wall thicknesses,
and material grades are available for
petroleum piping and pipeline applications.
• The original design process of calculating a
suitable pipe schedule number first devised in
1939 has since evolved into selecting an
appropriate pipe schedule for an application.
• The original intent of the Pipe Schedule
System was that all pipe diameters within a
pipe schedule designation such as Schedule 40
would have the same burst and working
pressure ratings.
• Since then, other factors, such as materials
strength and temperature effects, have
entered the picture such that designers use
validated physical data to select the right pipe
schedule for an application.
 Original Pipe Schedule Calculation

• Step 1.
Define the original pipe schedule calculation.
The accepted formula is Schedule Number =
1,000 x (P/S) where P = internal pressure,
pounds-per-square-inch-gauge (psig) and S =
allowable fiber stress (ultimate tensile
strength of the steel in psi).
• Step 2.
Rearrange terms to solve for P, assuming
schedule number and S are known. Therefore
P = Schedule number x S/1,000
• Step 3.
Calculate P based on Schedule 40 steel
pipe, and an S value of 65,300-psi for mild
steel pipe. Therefore, P = 40 x
65,300/1,000 = 2,612-psi.
This is reasonable, based on a current-day
published value of 2,849-psi for 1-inch
Schedule 40 steel pipe.