STUDY OF PIPE CONNECTOR EFFECT IN PIPING SYSTEM

MUHAMAD FIKRI AZIZ BIN MAT LAH

Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements

for the award of the degree of

Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering

UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA PAHANG

DECEMBER 2010

i

UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA PAHANG

FACULTY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

We certify that the project entitled “Study of pipe connector in piping system” is written by

Muhamad Fikri Aziz Bin Mat Lah. We have examined the final copy of this project and in

our opinion; it is fully adequate in terms of scope and quality for the award of the degree of

Bachelor of Engineering. We herewith recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering.

MOHD HAFIZI BIN ZOHARI

Examiner Signature

iii

SUPERVISOR’S DECLARATION

I hereby declare that I have checked this project and in my opinion, this project is adequate in

terms of scope and quality for the award of the degree of Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering.

Signature

Name of Supervisor: Miminorazeansuhaila bte Loman

Position: Lecturer

Date: December 2010

iii

STUDENT’S DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the work in this project is my own except for quotations and

summaries which have been duly acknowledged. The project has not been accepted for

any degree and is not concurrently submitted for award of other degree.

Signature

Name: Muhamad Fikri Aziz Bin Mat Lah

ID Number: MA 07019

v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my highest gratitude to Allah the Almighty for blessing me in finishing this project. Besides, I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude and appreciate especially to my supervisor, Madam Miminorazeansuhaila bte Loman for her constant guidance, consideration and constructive idea in leading me to accomplish this project.

Besides that, I wish to express my sincere appreciation to JP’s and PJP’s in Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, whom I owe particular debt of gratitude for their suggestion, endless effort in helping finding solutions and experiences that has supported me and assisted me tremendously in many aspect.

Last but not less, I acknowledge my sincere indebtedness and gratitude to my parents for their love, dream and sacrifice throughout my life. I cannot find the appropriate words that could properly describe my appreciation for their devotion, support and faith in my ability to attain my goals. Special thanks should be given to my committee members. I would like to acknowledge their comments and suggestions, which was crucial for the successful completion of this study.

To all my lovely current and ex roommates and friends who always willingly assist and support me throughout my journey of education, you all deserve my wholehearted appreciation. Many thanks.

vi

ABSTRACT

This thesis was carried out to investigate the effect of connecting pipes in a piping system using acoustic emission techniques. A plumbing system that is equipped with a number of connecting pipes was tested with acoustic emission sensors on the different fluid pressure. The sources of the acoustic emission signals (AE) is the activity prior to and after the fluid through connecting pipes and it is observed using acoustic sensors with a view of software USB E3.34.For study effects of pipe connections, all time domain parameters (maximum amplitude, power, RMS amplitude) of signals were observed and processed with the aid of Matlab software. All parameters were compared with the pressure of the fluid flow at eleven different points. The results showed that the difference between the AE parameters of high-flow pressure and low flow pressure is not much different. From this relationship, it may not conclude that the pipe connecting is the main factor to the difference in acoustic emission technique effects.

vii

ABSTRAK

Tesis ini dijalankan bagi mengkaji kesan penyambung paip dalam suatu sistem perpaipan dengan menggunakan teknik pancaran akustik. Suatu sistem paip yang dilengkapi dengan beberapa bilangan penyambung paip diuji dengan pengesan pancaran akustik pada tekanan bendalir yang berlainan. Punca isyarat pancaran akustik (AE) adalah daripada aktiviti yang dihasilkan sebelum dan selepas bendalir melalui penyambung paip dan ianya dicerap menggunakan penderia akustik dengan paparan dari perisian AEWin bagi USB E3.34. Untuk kajian kesan penyambungan paip, semua nilai parameter domain masa (amplitud maksimum, tenaga, amplitud pmkd ) dari isyarat dicerap dan diproses dengan bantuan perisian Matlab. Semua nilai parameter tersebut dibandingkan dengan tekanan aliran bendalir pada sebelas titik yang berbeza. Hasil menunjukkan nilai perbezaan parameter AE antara tekanan aliran tinggi dan tekanan aliran rendah tidak banyak berbeza. Dari hubungan ini, ia boleh disimpulkan bahawa penyambung paip tidak menjadi faktor utama kepada perbezaan kesan teknik pancaran akustik.

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

TITLE PAGE i

DECLARATION iii

DEDICATION iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT v

ABSTACT vi

ABSTRAK vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS viii

LIST OF TABLES xi

LIST OF FIGURES xii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xv

LIST OF APPENDICES xvi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Project background 2

1.3 Problem statement 3

1.4 Objective of the project 3

1.5 Scope of Studies 3

1.6 Overview of the thesis 4

ix

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Introduction 5

2.2 Basic component of piping system 6

2.2.1 Galvanized pipe and process to constitute its quality 6

2.3.1 Type of connector of the piping system 8

2.3.1.1 Equal Elbow 9

2.3.1.2 Elbow - 45° 10

2.3.1.3 Tee – Bullhead 11

2.3.1.4 Pipe Nipple 12

2.3.1.5 Wye – Standard 13

2.3.1.6 Pipe Offset 14

2.3.2 Advantages and disadvantages of galvanized

pipe fittings. 15

2.4 Flows in piping systems. 16

2.5 Acoustic Emission technology 19

2.5.1 Principle of acoustic emission testing

and AE phenomenon 20

2.5.2 Type of AE signal 21

2.5.2.1 Burst emission 21

2.5.2.2 Continuous emission 22

2.5.3 Wave form characteristic 22

2.6 Other most common NDT methods 26

2.6.1 Radiography Testing 26

2.6.2 Ultrasonic Testing 27

2.6.3 Magnetic Particle 28

2.6.4 Liquid Penetrate Testing 29

x

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 31

3.1 Introduction 31

3.2 Test Rig and Tool Preparation 31

3.3 Test Procedure 35

3.4 Software Setup 38

3.5 Flow Chart 42

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 43

4.1 Introduction 43

4.2 Comparison root mean square (RMS) according the pressure 43

4.3 Comparison energy according the pressure 46

4.4 Comparison maximum amplitude according the pressure 48

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 50

5.1 Conclusion 50

5.2 Recommendation 51

REFERENCES 53

APPENDIX A 55

APPENDIX B 56

xi

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE NO. TITLE PAGE

4.1 Result of RMS value for 5 Psi 44

4.2 Result of RMS value for 10 Psi 45

4.3 Result of energy value for 5 Psi 46

4.4 Result of energy value for 10 Psi 47

4.5 Result of max amplitude value for 5 Psi 48

4.6 Result of max amplitude value for 10 Psi 49

xii

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE NO. TITLE PAGE

2.1 Example of piping system 6

2.2 Sample of galvanized pipe. 7

2.3 Hot dipped galvanized. 8

2.4 Equal Elbow 9

2.5 Elbow 45° 10

2.6 Tee-Bullhead 11

2.7 Pipe Nipple 12

2.8 Wye – Standard 13

2.9 Pipe Offset 14

2.10 Sample of pipe in corrosion and rusting condition 15

2.11 Laminar simulation on an airfoil 17

2.12 Turbulent simulation 18

2.13 Example part of AE analyzer 19

2.14 Burst signal 21

2.15 Continuous signal 22

2.16 AE characteristic 23

2.17 Event counting 23

2.18 Schematic illustrating count, event duration, rise

and decay time and amplitude of AE signal 24

2.19 Threshold crossing counting or ring down counting 25

2.20 Measurement of peak amplitude 25

2.21 Radiograph of Valve 27

2.22 Typical Ultrasonic A-Scan 28

2.23 Visually detected under proper lighting conditions 29

2.24 Inside the penetrant 30

3.1 Typical of AE apparatus 32

3.2 Broadband acoustic sensors 33

3.3 1283 USB AE node 33

3.4 Grease. 34

xiii

3.5 Bench pump 35

3.6 Setup of the piping system. 36

3.7 Acoustic sensor was attached. 37

3.8 Software CD’s driver. 38

3.9 Click acquisition setup and choose AE hardware 39

3.10 Adjust the value of threshold. 39

3.11 Choose the type of hit data set 40

3.12 Graph setup boxes will appear 41

3.13 All the graphs appear 41

4.1 Graph RMS vs. number of connector for 5 Psi 44

4.2 Graph RMS vs. number of connector for 10Psi 45

4.3 Graph energy vs. number of connector for 5Psi 46

4.4 Graph energy vs. number of connector for 10Psi 47

4.5 Graph maximum amplitude vs. number of

connector for 5 Psi 484.6 Graph maximum amplitude vs. number of

connector for 10Psi 49

xiv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AE Acoustic emission

NDT Nondestructive Testing

RMS Root mean square

LAE laboratory assistant engineer

xv

LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX NO. TITLE PAGE

A M-file 55

B The example of the test data gained for 56 experiment 2 connectors and 5 Psi

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Transporting liquids through piping system is a common practice. The term

piping system is not new and practically every person has used one. During the past

decade, stainless steel pipeline has been used for major transportation of fluid system in

many industries which is very important in daily life (Rocha, 1989). Without this proper

technology, there will be a lot of problems faced by the administrators that can reduce

the performance of the systems. For the general public there is very little understanding

of the phenomena behind the use of piping system. Perfect piping will probably be

forever elusive and pipe leaks will likely be always. The stainless steel pipes in water

distributions and transmission systems are difficult to inspect for damage due to

location below the surface of background. High pressure and high temperature operating

condition causes stainless steel pipe leaking because of corrosion when it is operate for

few years. In some application, like power plant, the failure of piping systems can cause

several economic losses and in worst cases the lost of human lives (Makar et al., 2001).

The purpose of this thesis is to study about effect of piping connector in piping

system. The research focused to determine the failure that occur in connector in piping

system and analyze them by using Acoustic Emission (AE). This thesis will also

respond to the following technical requirement:

2

i. To identify the characteristic of catastrophic (a sudden and total failure of

some system from which recovery is impossible) failure event that will

occur in piping system.

ii. Capability of AE sensor to detect failure surface defects (anomalies)

since water is flow over the piping system.

1.2 PROJECT BACKGROUND

Piping systems are one of the most reliable and safest means of transfer of mater

and energy. New material such as plastic products and composites has enhanced the

domain of application of material systems in pipelines. Plastic pipes have salient

features such as low weight, ease of connection and corrosion resistance [Mehdi

Farshad, 2006]. The length of the piping system can achieve hundreds of kilometers and

belong the piping system can occur mechanism failure modes including crazing,

cracking, large deformation, buckling, fracture, local damage, corrosion and clogging of

piping system. Piping system also has lot of connector to achieve at its destination.

The inherent dangers associated with installing and maintaining piping systems

increase the importance of a mechanical engineer's role in designing for safety and

accident prevention during project construction and throughout a facility's life cycle.

There are three fundamental areas in which mechanical engineers can affect safety

positively: system constructability, best practices for training construction and

inspection, and system maintainability. Acoustic emission (AE) technique is one of the

systems where the failure in piping system can be detected.

Although most injuries on job sites and in the workplace occur via material

handling, the most significant risks in terms of potential impact on people and

businesses are caused by fire and fume hazards. By specifying safer technology likes

Acoustic emission technique and, the impact can minimize and eliminate the potential

for certain accident and injuries.

3

1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT

With the demands for increasing the times of using for piping system while

identifying routes for decreasing manufacturing costs and times, more emphasis is put

on developing methods for detecting the failure mode to prevent any injuries at the

workplace. These are challenging tasks due to the following main reasons:

i. Expensiveness of the components and material used for connector of

pipeline that suggests the use of more conservative machining or material

approaches to avoid scraps and/or additional machining.

ii. Difficulty to experimental relationships between sensory signals and

connector of pipeline caused by the complexity of machine based on size

and handling.

iii. Geometrical complexity of the connector of pipeline that require

complex tool paths in conjunction with a variety of machining

techniques.

1.4 THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT

The objective of the project is to:

i. Investigate the effect of pipe connector existence to the AE activity in

piping system.

ii. Classify the AE parameter that represents the AE events in the piping

system.

iii. Justify and see the difference of the AE parameter between piping with

and without connector.

4

1.5 SCOPE OF STUDIES

On focus of this project according to the following aspect:

i. Perform the entire experimental apparatus such as laptop, a set of piping

system, AE analyzer and other.

ii. Investigates the signal produced by different number of connector.

iii. The material of the piping system is galvanized pipe.

1.6 OVERVIEWS OF THE THESIS

This report is divided into five chapters. Chapter one gives the brief the content

and background of the project. The problem statement, objectives and scope of study

are also discussed in this chapter.

In chapter two, the literature review of the study is discussed. This chapter

provided with basic component of piping system. Starting from the galvanized pipe and

process to constitute its quality, then, I will go deeper into type of connector of the

piping system. The second part of this literature will review about advantages and

disadvantages of galvanized pipe fittings, Flow in piping systems. For my thesis, I also

will be exposed about acoustic emission (AE) technology, principle of acoustic

emission testing and AE phenomenon, type of AE signal, wave form characteristic and

other most common NDT methods.

For chapter three, methodology of the experiment is reviewed. Flow chart and

Gantt chart will be shown so that the time required for this thesis is on schedule. After

that The Acoustic Emission (AE) technique and experimental setup are studied. Then,

we will be explained about the how operation that we will use in this experiment.

Finally, the experiment will be run with supervised by laboratory assistant engineer

(LAE). Their supervision is important due to avoid unnecessary things happen.

5

In chapter four, the result from the experiment and characteristics of signal are

shown for further analysis. In this chapter, the details of detail discussion to be

determine. Follow by graph analysis to determine energy, root mean square (RMS)

value, crest factor and maximum amplitude. The analysis also performed into

suggestion about the catastrophic failure and the modifications are to be justified if

needed. Results of further analysis performed are to be discussed and the best

alternative design of the pipeline is to be justified.

Lastly in chapter five, the recommendation and conclusion are to be made. The

next page shows the summary of the outline of this study.

6

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a review of past research efforts related

to basic component of piping system, galvanized pipe and process to constitute its

quality, type of connector of the piping system, Flow in piping systems, Acoustic

emission technology, principle of acoustic emission testing and AE phenomenon and

wave form characteristic produce from acoustic analyzer . A review of other relevant

research studies also provided. The review is organized chronologically to offer insight

to how past research efforts have laid the groundwork for subsequent studies, including

the present research effort. The review is detailed so that the present research effort can

be properly tailored to add to the present body of literature as well as to justly the scope

and direction of the present research effort.

2.2 BASIC COMPONENT OF PIPING SYSTEM

A system can be described as a collection of related and/or interacting elements.

The elements of a system may themselves consist of systems and may constitute their

own subsystem, sub-subsystem and so on. A subsystem is a element or a functional

component of a larger system and; it fulfills the requirement of a systemic entity which

has been integrated into the large system and, as a constituting part, plays a role in the

existence and behavior of the large system [Mehdi Farshad, 2006].From the systems

point of view, pipeline like any other technical installation are not only assemble of

elements, but are structural systems interacting with their environment.

7

For instance, the partial settlement of the soil around the buried pipe will change

the pressure applied to the pipe and the stiffness of the pipe in relation with the stiffness

of soil will determine the distribution of the soil pressure [Mehdi Farshad, 2006].

Figure 2.1 presents a sample of piping system.

Figure 2.1: Example of piping system

2.2.1 Galvanized pipe and process to constitute its quality.

Galvanized tube steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that has been rolled into a

tube shape and then coated with zinc. Steel tubing is generally galvanized in one of two

ways. It can be hot dipped, or passed through molten zinc, which forms a thick

protective coating, or electroplated or passed through a solution of zinc with electrical

current, which results in a thinner layer of zinc adhering to the steel. Figure 2.2 presents

the sample of galvanized pipe.

8

Figure 2.2: Sample of galvanized pipe

Sources: http://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/hiyard/product-

detailFoqEmvSJsxUA/China-Galvanized-Steel-Pipe-Nipples.html

When steel tubing is galvanized, the zinc that is adhered to it will corrode faster

than the steel. This is beneficial because it acts to slow down the time that steel will take

to rust. This process is actually electrochemical in nature, with zinc having a greater

electronegativity than steel. When zinc is applied to steel with the knowledge that it will

corrode faster, yet reduce its corrosion time, the zinc is referred to as a sacrificial anode.

Hot dipped galvanized tube steel is typically the product of choice for outdoor

structural applications. This kind of tubing is often utilized in the construction of

carports, playground equipment, farm buildings, awnings, canopies, and trailers. It can

be coated with a baked enamel finish to give additional protection from corrosion.

Figure 2.3 presents the process of hot dipped galvanized.

9

Figure 2.3: Hot dipped galvanized

Sources: http://www.idodsystems.com/galprocess.html

There are a lot of advantages of using galvanized tube steel in construction. It is

very strong, less of it is needed to frame a building than if the same building were

framed with wood. It also generally weighs less than wood. This usually means that a

building will not have to be engineered for as much load, or weight, which often cuts

down construction expenses. Other benefits of metal tubing include its rot resistance,

fire resistance, and the fact that it will not split or warp.

2.3.1 Type of connector of the piping system

There are several types of connector in piping system. The purposes of

connector are connecting pipes of different materials or different type of pipes that

require different joining methods. Below are several sample connector of piping system.