CAD Software Speeds Made-to-Order Hydrogen Plants

Not long ago a company in Indonesia called up an engineering firm in Atlanta, ordered a hydrogen production plant, and sat back to wait for the plant to be delivered to its doorstep like a Federal Express parcel. A fairy tale? Hardly. Glitsch Process Systems, Inc. will be shipping the plant in a couple of months. The manufacturer, which is part of a wholly owned subsidiary of New Jersey-based Foster-Wheeler Corp. (Edison, N.J.), specializes in designing and building modular hydrogen plants that can be crated up and transported across an ocean or a continent with little ado.

While Glitsch Process Systems' construction techniques might seem unconventional, they are the natural result of the company's emphasis on efficiency as modus operandi. "The modular method allows for fast installation," explains Chuck Richards, lead CAD designer at Glitsch. "We build the foundation out of a number of steel skids, which are the right size for shipping. These can be set in place and filled with gravel and cement. When the utility tie-ins are hooked up, the plant is ready to go." The plants that Glitsch Process Systems builds in this way range in size from tiny (8x50 ft) to very large (200x300 ft).

Because Glitsch Process Systems relies on a small staff to accomplish big tasks, the company's commitment to efficiency begins not with shipping strategies, but with plant design. In fact, the design methods used by Glitsch help ensure that plant construction, shipping, and installment can be performed efficiently as well.

Desktop plant design
Glitsch automates the design process by integrating Autodesk's AutoCAD software with the AutoPLANT Designer program from Rebis (Walnut Creek, Calif.). With these tools running under Windows on his stand-alone PC, Chuck Richards has been able to design five hydrogen plants almost single-handedly since Glitsch Process Systems opened the Atlanta office three years ago. The lion's share of his work involves doing the complex pipe layout for each plant using Designer, which facilitates 3D piping layout and orthographic drawing production.

Sample screen showing view of AutoPLANT DESIGNER package from Rebis. The complex pipe layout for each plant is done using DESIGNER, which facilitates 3D piping layout and orthographic drawing production.

While all of Glitsch's hydrogen plants perform the same function—receiving a feed of natural gas, naptha, or some other fuel from which all gases are removed except hydrogen—no two plants share exactly the same design. "The size of the plant and its piping depend on the kind of [fuel] feed a client is using," explains Richards. "We have a base design, but we have to re-pipe every job." This variability in plant design makes efficiency in the design process itself even more important.

Each hydrogen plant design involves approximately 40 orthographic drawings and 115 isometric drawings (which illustrate the components and dimensions of individual pipelines). To increase efficiency Richards outsources production of the isometrics to a fabricator/assembler in Alabama. "Once I have a model done, we modem it over to them. They pull the ISOs out while I finish doing plans and elevations," Richards explains. "Then they can take those ISOs and pre-fabricate all the pipe, which means that when the vessels and steel are in place, they can go put up all the piping at once instead of fabricating lines as they go."

This smooth coordination between Glitsch Process Systems and its fabricator is possible because the latter uses Isometrics software, another product from Rebis' AutoPLANT line that works seamlessly with Designer. Richards describes how "you can export a line as an iso from Designer, import it into Isometrics, and get whatever view you want showing the dimension, valves, line numbers, insulation, and so on."

Sample screen of Rebis' ISOMETRICS package. To increase efficiency, production of the isometrics is outsourced to a fabricator/assembler in Alabama.

According to Richards, Designer influences not only the speed with which he can produce a variety of complex drawings for each plant, but also the speed with which the hydrogen plant itself can be assembled. One of the primary ways that Designer helps in this regard is in revealing piping interferences during the design phase, rather than during construction. "The software makes a drastic difference in the ease of checking for interferences and in the amount of rework that the shop has to do," he says. "By doing a 3D model [in Designer] you can see where interferences occur before they have a chance to happen."

Easy 3D

Drawings can be created in several ways in Designer. Richards uses single-line mode for line routing, double-line mode for two-dimensional orthographic drawings, and wireframe mode for three-dimensional representations. "It's not hard or time-consuming to create a 3D drawing," says Richards. "It may take a half hour to 45 minutes." But he asserts that the benefits of building the 3D images far outweigh the time involved.

"We usually give the shop a couple of 3D views and the plan in elevation [orthographics] for each skid," Richards explains. "That really goes over big because they can see what's going on better. The 3D drawings give them a view of the overall skid, and the orthographics give them the detail on dimensioning and elevation." For an even slicker presentation, wireframe drawings created in Designer can be downloaded to graphics-oriented software packages like 3D Studio or AutoVision.

While presentation is important, accuracy is even more crucial at Glitsch Process Systems. Designer helps ensure conformance to piping material standards by prompting for and enforcing uniform piping specifications. "After you tell the software what materials you want to use, it keeps you uniform. You don't have to worry about mixing materials. If there is a specification break—such as switching from carbon steel to stainless steel--from there forward Designer uses stainless steel automatically," Richards says.

Bill of Materials reports

Designer also automatically generates Bill of Materials (BOM) reports listing every pipe length, nut, bolt, elbow flange, and gasket represented in a drawing. Richards estimates that creating such lists by hand for all the plant drawings would take a week. With the software, it takes him four hours to produce several versions of the BOM report, including a combined BOM that provides totals of each kind of part used in the plant design, and a by-line BOM that lists the components that make up individual pipelines.

Richards imports the BOM data directly into an Excel spreadsheet, then turns the lists over to the purchasing department or the shop. The BOM reports lessen construction time by reducing the time workers spend deciphering drawings. "When the shop is working on a line, they can go to inventory and pull out exactly what they need--five elbows, three flanges. They don't have to figure it out by looking at the drawing. They can just look at the list," Richards explains.

Glitsch Process Systems' efficient design and construction techniques have worked so well that the company is receiving more orders than it can comfortably handle without expanding. In a matter of weeks it recently received orders for two plants, one destined for Malaysia and the other for the northern United States. In response to the demand, Glitsch has hired another CAD engineer and is installing a Novell local area network to facilitate file sharing.

All of these changes mean that Richards will change the way he works as well. "Now that we have jobs overlapping, I can't do it all," he says. He plans to turn much of the piping design over to the new engineer while he concentrates on the flow diagrams and steel and vessel drawings. By implementing this plan he will be subscribing once more to Glitsch Process Systems' modus operandi: get the job done the most efficient way you can.

For more information, contact Rebis, 1600 Riviera Ave. Suite 300, Walnut Creek, CA 94596. Tel: 510-933-2525, Fax: 510-933-1920.

By Nick Basta