Designing Piping Systems for Oxygen Service: Practical References

[FredGarvin]

Does anyone, by chance, happen to have some good, practical references in the design and preparation of piping systems for use in pure oxygen service? My ASTM references are about as close to worthless as it can get. Thanks.

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi Fred. Yep, ASTM doesn't cover this. The large industrial gas companies, ie: Air Liquide, Air Products, BOC, Praxair, etc... have their own research and development for oxygen systems and talk quite to each other about their own findings regarding oxygen safety. They even share pertinant data regarding incidents that occur due to oxygen related accidents. To get this data out into the public domain, the Compressed Gas Association is used as a governing body for compressed gas systems. Most of what they do is not legally binding such as the NFPA codes, but some of it actually is, such as testing for DOT cylinders and a few other things. Anyway, the guidlines you want to look for are in the CGA pamphlets.

To check through the available pamphlets, http://www.cganet.com/Publication.asp?mode=pb
The one you probably will be most interested in for designing oxygen piping systems is G-4.4. You can purchase it online http://www.cganet.com/publication_detail.asp?id=G-4.4
There are a number of other ones you may be interested in on that list, including the general one, G-4.

As a side note, NASA also does quite a bit of oxygen testing which it has published, though I generally don't use that and couldn't tell you where to find it off hand. I'm sure it's available. The NFPA codes may also have some requirements, I'm not absolutely sure if they do or not (have to look).

If you need specific help in designing an oxygen system, please feel free to ask.

 

[FredGarvin]

Thanks Q. Much appreciated. That's exactly what I was looking for. I do have a couple of NASA technical briefs which provide some good information, but they are a bit old and are noted as obsolete. I have not been able to find their replacements as of yet.

Thanks again.

 

[GOD__AM]

I have used oxygen in diving tanks for years. The main concern is that petroleum products are not used. This means using viton o-rings or something that does not contain petroleum products. Also the inside of the pipes or tanks must be free of rust and moisture so oxidation is not a problem.

 

[Antiphon]

I know that you have to be very careful.

I heard of one case where a stainless steel pipe ignited because of a pressure
burst. Because of the pure oxygen in the pipe, the stainless steel had a much
lower ignition temperature than in air and the pressure burst was able to raise the
temperature enough to ignite the pipe's ID.