Oil & Gas · Petrochemical · Pharmaceutical
Engineering specifications, explained from the ground up.
What a material grade actually means. Why a pipe schedule matters. What a welder needs before striking an arc. Written for people who have just joined the industry and have to read a specification on Monday morning.
- Oil & Gas
- Petrochemical
- Pharmaceutical
Pick your discipline
Each section is a learning path — start at the top and work down, or jump to the topic you need. Topics cross-link between disciplines where the work overlaps.
Process
What the plant is actually for. Unit operations, refinery and petrochemical routes, pharma manufacturing, and the documents every other discipline works from.
8 topics →Mechanical
Pipe materials and sizing, fittings, flanges, valves, gaskets and bolting, welding processes and NDT.
19 topics →Rotating Equipment
Pumps, compressors and their drivers, mechanical seals and flush plans, bearings and lubrication, vibration analysis and shaft alignment.
4 topics →Electrical
Hazardous area classification, Ex protection types, cable selection and sizing, earthing, motors and lighting.
9 topics →Civil & Structural
Soil investigation, foundations for equipment and pipe racks, concrete grades, rebar, structural steel and paving.
13 topics →Instrumentation & Control
Transmitters, pressure, temperature, flow and level measurement, control valves, 4–20 mA, P&ID reading and SIL.
13 topics →HSE
Risk assessment and the hierarchy of control, permits and isolation, working at height and lifting, occupational health, and emergency response.
5 topics →Start here
The first topic in each discipline. No prior knowledge assumed.
What the plant actually does — the shape of a process
Every plant is built from the same short list of unit operations. How a refinery, a petrochemical complex and a pharmaceutical plant differ, and why the process engineer's decisions land on everyone else's desk.
Pipe materials — what the grade on the spec actually means
A106, A312, P11 — how to read a piping material grade, why carbon steel is the default, and what forces an upgrade to alloy or stainless.
Hazardous areas — zones, gas groups and Ex protection explained
Why a light fitting in a refinery costs ten times a normal one. Zones and divisions, gas groups, temperature classes, IP ratings, and how to read an Ex certification label.
Soil investigation and compaction — the tests behind the report
What a Proctor test actually establishes and why field density is meaningless without it, the difference between Standard and Modified, why optimum moisture content is a target rather than a maximum, what sabkha does to buried concrete, and how a compaction result gets flattered without anyone lying.
What a transmitter is, and why it sends 4–20 mA
How a field instrument turns a physical quantity into a number the control room can use, why the signal starts at 4 mA instead of zero, and how to pick a measurement principle.
Risk assessment and the hierarchy of control
The difference between a hazard and a risk, why PPE is last and what that actually means on site, how a job safety analysis differs from a site risk assessment, why a high near-miss reporting rate is a good sign, and what stop work authority costs the first time somebody uses it.
Recently updated
- ProcessInspection and quality control — ITPs, hold points and NCRs
- MechanicalMaterial degradation — sensitisation, hardness limits and galvanic attack
- MechanicalNon-destructive examination — choosing the method and reading the result
- Rotating EquipmentBearings, seals and lubrication — the parts that actually fail