An article on pipe support span for

beginners.
November 27, 2018

Pipe Support Span (Fig. 1) is defined as the optimum distance between two supports so as to
avoid excessive sagging. Pipe span varies with changes in

 Pipe Material
 Nominal Diameter Of pipe & Schedule
 Type of service
 Type and Thickness Insulation

Fig. 1: Figure showing pipe support span

Span Length Depends On-

 Bending Stress
 Deflection
 Indentation
 Allowable Loads

BENDING STRESS:
Bending is caused mainly due to two reasons:

 Uniform Weight Load

 Concentrated Weight Load

Uniform Weight Load

 Own Weight Of Pipe

 Insulation Weight
 Weight of Fluid During operation
 Weight of hydrostatic fluid During Hydro Test

Concentrated Load

 Weight Of Valve, Flanges,

 Strainer, specialty in line items etc.

DEFLECTION:

Deflection (Δ) is defined as relative displacement of point from its original position.

 The basic piping practice to limit pipe deflection between supports to 1”OR 1/2 the
nominal pipe diameter, whichever is the smaller.
 The most important reason for limiting deflection is to make the pipe stiff enough, that is
,of high enough natural frequency, to avoid large amplitude response under any slight
perturbing force .As a rough rule, for average piping a natural frequency of 4 cycles per
second will be found satisfactory. The natural frequency can be calculated by
 The most important reason for limiting deflection is to make the pipe stiff enough, that is
,of high enough natural frequency, to avoid large amplitude response under any slight
perturbing force .As a rough rule, for average piping a natural frequency of 4 cycles per
second will be found satisfactory. The natural frequency can be calculated by

INDENTATION:
Where,

t=corroded Thickness of pipe Wall(mm)

S=0.67Sh(N/mm2)

R=Radius of pipe (mm)

d=Bearing Length(mm)

b=Bearing width(mm)

ALLOWABLE LOAD AT SUPPORT:

Where,

Pa=Allowable Load at Support point

t=effective local thickness (pipe wall +Reinforced Pad If Any)

R=outer radius of Pipe

b=Bearing length of pipe (along the axis) on the support structure

IF ACTUAL LOAD AT SUPPORT IS GREATER THAN ALLOWABLE LOAD GIVEN BY

ABOVE FORMULA, REINFORCEMENT PAD WILL BE REQUIRED.

Normally project specific Support SPAN is provided in tabular format for straight pipes. But for
elbows or turns the span to be reduced by a factor as shown in the below attached figure (Fig. 2).
Readymade support spans for a specific pipe diameter and thickness are available in MSS code.
For Shell group of companies support span is provided in DEP.
Fig. 2: Factor to reduce support span depending on layout.