Designing water fluid circuits

The purpose of this article is to describe the control provisions of a simplified fluid systems design process. This article is intended as a guide, to be systematically adapted to the size and specificity of the project, and should be used as an aid to the fluid systems design process. The documents listed in the body of the text are indicative and will be required for most major projects. The description of these processes is linear for greater clarity of task sequence, but their logic and handling is often iterative.

Fluid system design: interests and challenges

The aim is to provide the minimum knowledge required for the design of fluid systems in water, both technically (by proposing reminders) and methodologically (by proposing a simplified process). Other articles will deal specifically with the design of air and steam fluid circuits.

A water fluid system is a more or less complex assembly of various materials containing or conveying water. This article and the others that follow attempt to provide some answers to the question of "how to design a fluid system", from its most preliminary to its most detailed versions.

This task generally falls to the design office engineer in charge of process design. In industry, the fluid system designer plays the role of an interface between many different professions. The designer of a fluid system must demonstrate good practical sense, be an assiduous reader of functional analysis, always be able to make proposals, be sensitive to cost aspects, and rely, whenever possible, on feedback from existing similar installations, and therefore on the knowledge of those who have already operated installations similar to the one he or she is designing.

Prerequisites for fluid system design

This article [BM 6 200] provides a simplified presentation of the typical fluid system design process, i.e. the general circuit design strategy, from the needs expression phase (issuing functional specifications), through to circuit commissioning (drafting test programs).

The [BM 6 201] article provides a reminder of hydraulics, heat exchangers and chemistry.

The