Piping in the context of "Oil refinery"

Plumbing is any system that conveys fluids for a wide range of applications. Plumbing uses pipes, valves, plumbing fixtures, tanks, and other apparatuses to convey fluids. Heating and cooling (HVAC), waste removal, and potable water delivery are among the most common uses for plumbing, but it is not limited to these applications. The word derives from the Latin for lead, plumbum, as the first effective pipes used in the Roman era were lead pipes.

In the developed world, plumbing infrastructure is critical to public health and sanitation.

A confined space is a space with limited entry and egress and not suitable for human inhabitants. Alternative names for a confined space are enclosed space and dangerous space. An example is the interior of a storage tank, occasionally entered by maintenance workers but not intended for human occupancy. Hazards in a confined space often include harmful dust or gases, asphyxiation, submersion in liquids or free-flowing granular solids (for example, grain bins), electrocution, or entrapment.

Confined space accidents are of particular concern in occupational safety and health due to the hazards that they pose to the victim and subsequently to a rescue team. Confined space training outlines the skills and protocols for safe entry to confined spaces, and includes precautions such as locking and tagging out connecting piping, testing of breathable air quality, forced ventilation, observation of workers in the space, and a predetermined rescue plan with appropriate safety harnesses and other rescue equipment standing by.

The Flint water crisis was a public health crisis from 2014 to 2019 which involved the drinking water for the city of Flint, Michigan, being contaminated with lead and possibly Legionella bacteria.

In April 2014, during a financial crisis, state-appointed emergency manager Darnell Earley changed Flint's water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (sourced from Lake Huron and the Detroit River) to the Flint River. Residents complained about the taste, smell, and appearance of the water. Officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels. A pair of scientific studies confirmed that lead contamination was present in the water supply. The city switched back to the Detroit water system on October 16, 2015. It later signed a 30-year contract with the new Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) on November 22, 2017.

A vapor barrier (or vapour barrier) is any material used for damp proofing, typically a plastic or foil sheet, that resists diffusion of moisture through the wall, floor, ceiling, or roof assemblies of buildings and of packaging to prevent interstitial condensation. Technically, many of these materials are only vapor retarders as they have varying degrees of permeability.

Materials have a moisture vapor transmission rate (MVTR) that is established by standard test methods. One common set of units is g/m·day or g/100in·day. Permeability can be reported in perms, a measure of the rate of transfer of water vapor through a material (1.0 US perm = 1.0 grain/square-foot·hour·inch of mercury ≈ 57 SI perm = 57 ng/s·m·Pa). American building codes started classifying vapor retarders in the 2007 IRC supplement. They are Class I <0.1 perm, Class II 0.1 - 1 perm and Class III 1-10 perm when tested in accordance with the ASTM E96 desiccant, dry cup or method A. Vapor-retarding materials are generally categorized as:

In engineering, a housing or enclosure is a container, a protective exterior (e.g. shell) or an enclosing structural element (e.g. chassis or exoskeleton) designed to enable easier handling, provide attachment points for internal mechanisms (e.g. mounting brackets for electrical components, cables and pipings), maintain cleanliness of the contents by shielding dirt/dust, fouling and other contaminations, or protect interior mechanisms (e.g. delicate integrated electrical fittings) from structural stress and/or potential physical, thermal, chemical, biological or radiational damages from the surrounding environment. Housing may also be the body of a device, vital to its function.