Zhejiang Engineering Design Co., Ltd. (ZEDC) provides engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services to the chemical, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries. In addition to engineering and design, the firm provides clients with consulting and project management services.
Identifying goals
The Sichuan Hebang hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas production project, located in Leshan, Sichuan, China, has a capacity of 15,000 tons per year and covers 6,500 square meters with a cost of US$300 million (2 billion RMB).
One of the world’s top five engineering companies, JGC of Japan, licensed the production technology for H2S, one of the main materials of methionine and partnered with Zhejiang Engineering Design Co., Ltd. (ZEDC) for the detail design work. The project includes the following facilities:
H2S plant
Sulfur melting and purifying plant
Sulfur warehouse
Refrigeration plant
There are 95 pieces of equipment and 400 pipelines totaling 5,800 meters of stainless steel, carbon steel, galvanized steel and PE pipe with diameters of DN15 to DN500 and a total of 21 pipe classes.
Overcoming challenges
For this project, JGC needed to review ZEDC’s detail design 3D model at the 30, 60 and 90 percent stages.
“The project’s 3D model complexity and JGC’s detail requirements were major challenges,” explained Miaoyan Jin, 3D administrator at ZEDC. “Plus, many young engineers lacked experience using 3D design and had to learn it on the job.”
ZEDC had used other design software previously. Because of the importance of accurate material accounting and easy visual design reviews, the company decided on 3D design using Forte 3DWorx because of the software’s fast learning curve and ease of use, plus its easy integration with Aspect Pipe Stress for pipe analysis.
Without Forte 3DWorx, more collisions in the design can occur, adding to expenses, and the bills of material would be less accurate. The design review meetings would typically uncover more errors resulting in costly rework, causing customer satisfaction to suffer.
Realizing results
By using Forte 3DWorx, ZEDC completed the database and 3D model independently and translated the 3D model of pipelines to Aspect Pipe Stress to conduct the piping stress analysis.
Forte 3DWorx helped eliminate errors and customer complaints, and the detail design reviews were more intuitive and efficient, delivering higher customer satisfaction.
ZEDC increased its accuracy from 90 to 95 percent.
“Modeling totaled about 1,000 labor hours, a 20 percent reduction thanks to Forte 3DWorx and Aspect Pipe Stress,” Jin added, “and labor hours will continue to decrease as staff members become more skilled.”
