Evaluation on the pressure protection system of a certain LPG pipeline

In view of the physical property of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), the design of LPG pipeline pressure protection method shall consider steady pressure and surge pressure according to the requirements of conventional liquid oil pipelines, and also focus on the pressure protection in the special working conditions of LPG pipelines. In this paper, a certain existing LPG pipeline was taken as the study object to analyze the pipeline pressure in the cases of normal transportation and water hammer by virtue of the commercial software TLNET. Then, the pressure variation during pipeline shut down was discussed thoroughly. And finally, existing pressure protection systems were evaluated. It is shown that the extreme pressure scenarios of LPG pipelines may not be included completely in the analysis idea on the pressure of conventional liquid oil pipelines. When a LPG pipeline is shut down for heating up in winter, its pressure will rise sharply. Therefore, it is necessary to set up pre-arranged planning and formulate pressure protection measures correspondingly. The research results can provide reference for relevant scholars and engineering designers.