Piping design Topics

I have been in the business for 25 years. I have gone from "Not knowing what a CAD system is" to "Entry level people not knowing what a drafting board is".

Has anything changed? Has everything changed? What does a designer need to know now versus what a designer needed to know in the past? What are some of the obstacles facing current piping designers? What are some of the obstacles facing today's drafting room? Could you solve them with a book?

Todays piping designers are modelers. The computer programs make the drawings. We used to focus on making nice drawings. Now we focus on making nice models. We output auto isometric drawings. We generate plan drawings from the 3d models.

Piping designers which know computer programs are in demand. What is the importance breakdown ratio wise? Is it more important to know the computer program, or the piping design?

We used to look at catalogs. Now we look at spreadsheets. We consult on-line manuals. We let the programs look up the specs.

Thoughts on what it takes to be a good piping designer?

Knowledge and experiance are the best friend of a good piping designer.

Can the required knowledge be put in one book?

Some obvious topics of understanding are:

How to gather field information. How to route piping. How to support piping. Information of general piping systems. Information about general piping components. How fittings are attached.

There are books which exist that cover some aspects of piping design.

Welding, pressure vessel, process pipe drafting, process pipe design, process layout, underground piping, piping design handbook.

Is it possible to merge all of these book into one? Thereby allowing the reader to better understand piping design in today's environment.

CADD-201 AutoCAD I 2.0

CADD-202 AutoCAD II 2.0

CADD-221 MicroStation I 2.0

CADD-222 MicroStation II 2.0

CADD-241 CADD System Management I 1.0

CADD-250 Applied CADD 4.0

CADD-254 AutoFLOW/AutoORTHO/AutoISO 3.0

CADD-303 AutoCAD III 2.0

CADD-323 MicroStation III 2.0

COMP-266 Basic Word and Excel 1.0

ENGD-210 Drafting Fundamentals 3.0

ENGD-320 Process Piping Drafting I 6.0

ENGD-350 Process Piping Drafting II 9.0

ENGD-351 Pressure Vessel Design 2.0

ENGD-352 Plant Planning 3.0

ENGD-353 Plant Equipment 2.0

INST-346 Instrumentation Theory and Piping 2.0

PERS-225 Job Search Skills 4.0

PRAC-225 Practicum 5.0

PROP-208 Natural Gas Processing 3.0

I am going to put some thought into writing a technical book about piping design

I am going to do some searching on doing a book about piping design.

Linux is tough!

Linux is all about reading and practicing!

Get a degree in Computer Science!

Use Linux - and hate it - because you are used to some type of a GUI environment.

Step 1. Read an article about a home file server.
Step2. Spend a weekend doing what the web site said was a 45 minute job.
Step3. Buy lots of books. Read what you can.
Step4. Spend lots of time making small - very small progress steps.
Step 5. Install NAS storage device.
Step 6. Try and write a simple backup script. Not an easy thing.
Step 7. Take more baby steps.
Step 8. Test, regroup, and test.
Step 9. Make some progress. Rejoice! Win some small battles!

I have a Linux server running right now. It is not secure. I will work on that. I have an automated back-up script running. I will soon get my tar balls written to a NAS. I will experiment with crontab. I should have the results tomorrow. I will soon start working on better routines. The learning never stops. I have so much to learn. I feel as if I have climbed a mountain. But from my view on top of this mountain - all I see is higher mountains!