[REQUEST] Foundation Software for Onshore (Oil and Gas)

[sbarwal]

Deal All,

Can you suggest me the best foundation design software for designing of equipment foundations and Steel Structure foundation in petrochemical plant?

Thanks

[anjomolinz]

staad foundation or csi safe

[tamboon]

Hi sbarwal,

For onshore oil & gas foundation design, to my knowledge, EPC companies mostly use their own developed program or spreadsheets that are specifically developed for a project during FEED/Basic Engineering phase, unless the client states otherwise. It's rare to use commercial softwares as oil & gas has specific requirements which often cannot be covered by them.

So far I only know 2 softs that do well with oil & gas :
1) Foundation3D
I used it once when I was in a project. It has options to design Horizontal Vessel (Heat Exchangers/Drum) fdn & Octagonal fdn for Vertical Vessel (Column) as well Steel/Concrete Structures fdn. Flexible & unlimited numbers of primary load case & load combinations. Design visualization is 2D only & can generate details drawings.
2) GS AFES
Never try it, but my colleagues gave me feedback. Design visualization is 3D & can generate details drawings in CAD software (ie. AutoCAD). It also can design equipments foundations. One main feature is grouping which is not available in Foundation3D or other commercial fdn softs. Let say there are 6 support nodes in a group, then the foundation will be designed based on the critical one in that group, resulting the same foundation sizing for these 6 nodes. This feature is very useful for designing Piperack foundations which commonly typical. Support reactions from structural soft can be paste directly (cmiiw). In Foundation3D, the support nodes have to be checked one by one first, before the typical fdn sizing can be determined, and need to convert the axis of the support reactions from structural soft through Excel before pasting.
But to my knowledge, GS AFES is only used in a Korean EPC firm (G&S Engineering), so I guess this program perhaps intended for internal use at first before going commercial.

regards,