Enabling AutoPIPE Capabilities to Uniquely Span Comprehensive Piping Analysis and Rigorous Performance Simulation for Pressure Vessels and Heat Exchangers
Amsterdam, Netherlands – Be Inspired: Innovations in Infrastructure – Nov. 13, 2012 – Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, today announced that it has acquired EuResearch, provider of Microprotol – a leading software application for the design and analysis of pressure vessels and heat exchangers. With this addition to its portfolio, Bentley extends its world-class AutoPIPE product suite to span comprehensive pipe stress analysis for improved productivity and quality, with rigorous performance simulation capabilities for streamlined design, analysis, fabrication, and commissioning of pressure vessels and their associated pipework. Users in engineering and fabrication firms will benefit from the faster delivery of improved designs, and owner-operators will achieve safety and process improvements that enhance returns on investment. Microprotol users include the largest and most safety-conscious engineering, procurement, and construction contractors (EPCs), plant owners, consulting engineers, and manufacturing firms.
Victor Smirnov, CEO, ZAO Neftekhimproekt (NHP), which is headquartered in St. Petersburg, Russia, said, “NHP began using Microprotol in 2011, and we have thus far employed it on 30 projects. In each case we were able to improve the quality of our pressure vessel designs, leading to enhanced product safety, while substantially saving time – producing all deliverables, including specifications, detailed drawings, and bills of materials, in three days rather than typically two weeks.”
Commenting on the new acquisition, Santanu Das, Bentley vice president, design, simulation, and information modeling, said, “On behalf of my colleagues at Bentley, I welcome our new team members from EuResearch, all of whom are seasoned mechanical engineers from the industrial process sector. In providing advanced tools for pressure vessel design and analysis, Microprotol software adds powerful new capabilities to our globally used AutoPIPE software for pipe stress analysis. Microprotol also adds capabilities to the Bentley OpenPlant plant design engineering software, as well as to our broad range of flexible and scalable integrated structural analysis and design offerings, including STAAD, RAM, ProSteel, and Structural Modeler. Most importantly, our ongoing integration work with Microprotol will soon deliver uniquely comprehensive performance simulation solutions across the fuller breadth of the plant lifecycle, offering users a step change in productivity while improving plant safety through enhanced design.”
Gérard Malhaire, former CEO of EuResearch, now serving as a consultant to Bentley, said, “Our organizations share development priorities in the key areas of plant safety, code compliance, and industry standards. Together, we will enable more complete information modeling for all high-pressure plant environments, leading to plant structures that can be delivered more quickly, and that are safer and more cost efficient to operate. Many of our users have told us how great it would be if they could incorporate the pressure vessel design and analysis functionality of our Microprotol software with the world-class piping analysis capabilities of AutoPIPE, and now they can.”
Mark Upston, Bentley director, structural solutions, said, “For many years plant design and construction teams have been saying to us that there have to be more efficient ways of incorporating vessel design. Often the vessel certification is still accomplished by way of paper transmittals, and it can take up to two years after the purchase order is issued to get certified vessel drawings back. This causes delays in construction through holds on the piping system or the re-issuing of many field weld instructions since the project team isn’t sure exactly what the vessel is going to look like.”
He continued, “Our users will be delighted that Bentley has acquired Microprotol. We have been the first software vendor to provide the innovative information mobility required for cross-discipline coordination workflows – for example, between AutoPIPE and STAAD, saving piping and structural engineering teams thousands of hours of design and review effort. With our uniquely integrated applications for structural and piping disciplines now extended to vessel design and analysis, they can work smarter, together, to deliver faster, more accurate, high-quality projects, and to improve plant safety.”
Among the many features of Microprotol are:
- the ability to handle pressure vessels ranging from column, reactor, horizontal, and vertical drums to shell and tube heat exchangers, air coolers, steel stacks, and boilers;
- support for a comprehensive set of international standards including ASME, German, British, Russian, French, and European codes;
- cost estimation, auto calculation of bundle tube-layout, and complete air cooler design;
- inclusion of an XML database that enables users to connect to product data management systems (such as those for specification sheets and purchasing);
- links to front-end engineering design to acquire all material and temperature data (e.g., from AspenTech Tasc and Tasc+, HTRI Xchanger, Prosim EXCH, and Honeywell UniSim).
About Be Inspired: Innovations in Infrastructure
Be Inspired: Innovations in Infrastructure is an invitation-only conference that provides a unique forum for senior-level executives to learn about the innovations driving the development and operations of the world’s top infrastructure projects. At the 2012 conference, taking place this week in Amsterdam, Netherlands, industry thought leaders will engage in interactive discussions on topics of utmost importance to the business of sustaining infrastructure. Also in attendance are more than 80 members of the global media, who additionally participated in a special media day briefing on November 12.
The conference features presentations by the Be Inspired Awards finalists and Be Inspired Special Recognition Awards winners, as well as executive roundtables focusing on business, technology, and practice issues crucial to infrastructure professionals around the world. It will culminate in the Be Inspired Awards ceremony recognizing outstanding achievement and innovation in infrastructure design, construction, and operations by winners selected from 58 project finalists by five independent panels of jurors. In total, nominations from more than 250 organizations in 39 countries were submitted in this year’s awards program. For additional information about the Be Inspired: Innovations in Infrastructure event, visit www.bentley.com/BeInspired.
About Bentley Systems, Incorporated
Bentley is the global leader dedicated
to providing architects, engineers, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure. Bentley Systems applies information mobility to improve asset performance by leveraging information modeling through integrated projects for intelligent infrastructure. Its solutions encompass the MicroStation platform for infrastructure design and modeling, the ProjectWise platform for infrastructure project team collaboration and work sharing, and the AssetWise platform for infrastructure asset operations – all supporting a broad portfolio of interoperable applications and complemented by worldwide professional services. Founded in 1984, Bentley has more than 3,000 colleagues in 50 countries, more than $500 million in annual revenues, and since 2003 has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions. Additional information about Bentley is available at www.bentley.com and in Bentley’s annual report. For Bentley news as it happens, subscribe to an RSS feed of Bentley press releases and news alerts. To view a searchable collection of innovative infrastructure projects from the annual Be Inspired Awards, access Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure publications. To access a professional networking site that enables members of the infrastructure community to connect, communicate, and learn from each other, visit Be Communities. To download the Bentley Infrastructure 500 Top Owners ranking, a unique global compendium of the top public- and private-sector owners of infrastructure based on the value of their cumulative infrastructure investments, visit www.bentley.com/500.
to providing architects, engineers, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure. Bentley Systems applies information mobility to improve asset performance by leveraging information modeling through integrated projects for intelligent infrastructure. Its solutions encompass the MicroStation platform for infrastructure design and modeling, the ProjectWise platform for infrastructure project team collaboration and work sharing, and the AssetWise platform for infrastructure asset operations – all supporting a broad portfolio of interoperable applications and complemented by worldwide professional services. Founded in 1984, Bentley has more than 3,000 colleagues in 50 countries, more than $500 million in annual revenues, and since 2003 has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions. Additional information about Bentley is available at www.bentley.com and in Bentley’s annual report. For Bentley news as it happens, subscribe to an RSS feed of Bentley press releases and news alerts. To view a searchable collection of innovative infrastructure projects from the annual Be Inspired Awards, access Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure publications. To access a professional networking site that enables members of the infrastructure community to connect, communicate, and learn from each other, visit Be Communities. To download the Bentley Infrastructure 500 Top Owners ranking, a unique global compendium of the top public- and private-sector owners of infrastructure based on the value of their cumulative infrastructure investments, visit www.bentley.com/500.
