Page 96 - Industrial Plants 2014

Fig. 4 - Base plate,
general arrangement:
top view

design complexity. In fact, design not only had to be Termomeccanica La Spezia’s in-house test center
adapted to the particularly limited spaces available facilities.
but it also had to take into account the tight
constraints of vessel motion specification on
structural elements and accessories; design further Cooling circulation pumps
had to take into consideration interface loads higher For the cooling medium circulation service, the
than usual for this type of application. contract also included the supply of 3 vertical
All the above requirements have entailed the “in-line” API OH3-type pumps (figure 6), with a flow
necessity to dedicate considerable resources to rate of 1050 m /h at a 52.5 m head and driven by a
3
engineering activities, substantially higher than for 230 kW electric motor.
other comparable projects, whether related to the In this case too, the specific requirements of this
ad hoc design of the baseplate and other skid project, particularly the need to reduce overall
structural elements or to the methodical use of FEM dimensions without affecting technical requirements,
(Finite Element Method) analysis (figure 5) for both have led to a tailor-made solution with the supply of
design and verification of various components of the Termomeccanica DDBV-type pumps. This is actually
supply. a typical solution for Termomeccanica which consists
The engineering of auxiliary and electrical of “in-line” vertical pumps that are however axially-
components, such as inverters, electric motors and split instead of radially-split as for the API 610 OH3
lube oil system was also subject to the limitations standard.
imposed by the afore-mentioned requirements.
A Hazop (HAZard and OPerability analysis) review
was conducted at design completion in order to Utility pumps

verify that all measures necessary to guarantee the The remaining utility services of the platform are
safe operation of the plant had been taken into covered by 5 more OH2-type pumps: 2 “off-gas
account during the design phase. compressor suction drain pumps”, Termomeccanica
Fig. 5 – Baseplate The complete test of the pumping unit under all its 25AP32 model, and 3 “heating medium circulation
FEM model operating conditions was carried out at pumps”, Termomeccanica 80AP20 model.

Vertically suspended pumps

Termomeccanica supply finally included 2 vertically
suspended pumps: one VS2-type pump, working
as glycol transfer pump (Termomeccanica CPP50.1
model) and one VS4-type pump, working as drain
sump pump (Termomeccanica 25CPPL16 model).
Once again, the peculiarities of the project have
prevailed over design standardization.
The lack of space on the platform deck did not allow
the development of design according to API610

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