Repetitive piping blockage - Line size increase

[tuan]

In one of our material handling unit, we have been facing issues of repetitive piping blockage. We believe that other than the heat tracing (installed to keep the material in melted form) effectiveness, smaller line size is also playing a role. However, would this be possible to just change the line size to a size bigger without considering other factors like hydraulic balance of the system itself. What are the other considerations?

[arcpro]

Which service are we talking here, getting blocked?

[ivani1]

Just a perspective here, you increase the piping diameter to kill plugging and then you kill velocity, the flow and let another reason of plugging get into the piping...

In one of our material handling unit, we have been facing issues of repetitive piping blockage. We believe that other than the heat tracing (installed to keep the material in melted form) effectiveness, smaller line size is also playing a role. However, would this be possible to just change the line size to a size bigger without considering other factors like hydraulic balance of the system itself. What are the other considerations?

[sys1]

I would recommend that you consider the following before modifying line size:
Map exact blockage locations
Perform IR thermal survey during operation
Review minimum-flow cases
Verify steam trap functionality
Check slopes and pockets
Calculate velocity before/after upsizing
Run hydraulic + thermal simulation
Review startup/shutdown procedures
Evaluate solids contamination
Consider heat-jacketed piping if chronic
Sometimes increasing tracing effectiveness, improving insulation, eliminating dead legs, increasing circulation frequency, solves the issue without changing pipe size at all.
And in some cases, selectively upsizing only certain problematic sections is better than changing the entire system hydraulically.