Pipe Support Structural Design — Whole Load Path in One Run
PiperSTR designs the structural steel that carries your pipe. Enter the support once — arms, column, base plate, anchors, pier — and one run walks the whole load path: the pipe load on an arm becomes the arm's moment, the arm's reaction becomes the weld demand, the column carries the accumulated axial and biaxial moment down to the base plate, the anchors, and the soil. Every check names the AISC or ACI clause that governed. It runs in your browser: no solver, no API call, no per-run cost.
Content last reviewed · page regenerated 2026-07-31 at build.
What it checks
Most tools make you run four separate calculators and hand-carry loads between them — a member check here, a base plate there, an anchor calculation somewhere else. PiperSTR runs the cascade in one submit, so changing a pipe load on an arm updates the anchor tension and the soil pressure immediately. That single property is the whole point of the tool.
The load path, in order
| Arm | AISC 360-22 Chapters D, E, F, G and H — tension, compression (including flexural-torsional and slender-element effects), flexure with lateral-torsional and local buckling, shear, and combined forces. Plus a deflection check, which pipe-support spans frequently govern on. |
| Welds | Fillet welds per J2 with the J2.4(b) directional strength increase, at both the arm-to-column and column-to-base-plate joints, checked against the base metal as well as the weld metal. |
| Column | The same member check, carrying the accumulated axial load plus biaxial moment from every arm and any lateral load at the top. |
| Base plate | Concrete bearing per AISC J8, and plate yielding at both the bearing and tension interfaces per AISC Design Guide 1 — including the shortened bearing block that governs when the eccentricity pushes past the kern. |
| Anchors | ACI 318-19 Chapter 17: steel strength in tension and shear, concrete breakout both ways, pullout, side-face blowout, pryout, and the 17.8 tension-shear interaction. |
| Pier and soil | Bearing pressure, overturning, sliding and two-way punching shear — or, for a pier doweled into existing concrete, the anchorage check that actually resists overturning there. |
Sections and materials
1,506 AISC shapes are built in: W, M, S, HP, C, MC and WT transcribed from AISC's freely published Shapes Database v16.0, plus L angles, rectangular, square and round HSS, and Pipe computed from nominal geometry per Specification B4.2. Both design methods run from one nominal-strength core, so you can switch LRFD to ASD and compare the same design without re-entering anything.
Output
- Stage table — every component with its maximum utilisation ratio, the limit state that produced it, and a pass/fail verdict.
- 3D model — the assembly to scale, each member coloured by its own utilisation, so the governing element is visible before you read a number.
- Design Summary Report — a PDF with the title block, design basis and factors, geometry, applied loads, base reactions, every check with its clause, and the assumptions the run made.
- Report Manager capture — the whole cascade lands as one calculation in the same report package as the stress and spring calcs beside it.
Who it is for
PiperSTR is aimed at the engineer who owns the pipe and inherits the steel underneath it:
- Piping engineers sizing standard support assemblies against real pipe loads instead of picking a detail off a standard and hoping the span is covered.
- Plant and maintenance engineers checking whether an existing support can take a new line, a re-route, or an added tier.
- Structural engineers who want the pipe-support case without modelling a frame — the parametric configurations are determinate, so the answer is closed-form and reproducible.
Five configurations ship: T-post, multi-tier, cantilever off existing structure, goalpost/portal, and trapeze — with presets for two common standard details.
Honest limits
Two things it deliberately does not do. It does not embed proprietary anchor qualification data: the characteristic bond stress of an adhesive anchor, and any product-specific effectiveness factor, come from your ICC-ES evaluation report. Leave the bond stress blank and the tool tells you the bond check did not run rather than quietly passing the anchor. And it does not select allowable soil bearing, friction or cohesion — those are geotechnical report values, always entered by you.
The parametric configurations are statically determinate by construction. A braced frame, a continuous header spanning several supports, or a support whose stiffness interacts with the piping system needs a frame analysis, not this.
FAQ
What codes does it use?
AISC 360-22 for the steel — Chapter B4 classification, D tension, E compression including E4 flexural-torsional and E7 slender elements, F2 through F10 flexure, G shear including the G2.1(a) exemption, and H combined forces — with AISC Design Guide 1 for the base plate. ACI 318-19 Chapter 17 covers the anchors and Chapter 22 the punching shear. Both LRFD and ASD run from the same nominal-strength core; only the factor applied at the end differs.
Where do the section properties come from?
W, M, S, HP, C, MC and WT shapes are transcribed from AISC's Shapes Database v16.0, which AISC publishes free alongside the 16th Edition Manual. That release carries no angles, HSS or pipe, so those families are computed from nominal geometry — angles by a sharp-corner idealisation that lands within 1% of published values and errs low (so capacities are conservative), and HSS and Pipe using the Specification B4.2 design wall thickness of 0.93 t_nom. Confirm final selections against the Manual for your governing edition.
Does it check deflection?
Yes, per arm, against a limit you set — L/240 by default. This matters more than it sounds: pipe-support spans are frequently governed by deflection rather than strength, and several commercial member-design modules check ultimate limit states only. A support that passes every strength check and still sags enough to pond or to unload a spring is a support that failed.
Why did my standard detail fail overturning?
Almost certainly because it is modelled as a gravity spread footing when it is actually doweled into existing concrete. A light support with pipes cantilevered to one side generates more overturning moment than its own weight can resist — but if the pier is anchored into a slab or mat, the anchors resist it, not the footing weight. Switch the pier restraint to anchored and the anchor stage carries that check instead.
What tier do I need?
PiperSTR is a Pro Plus tool ($7.99/month or $59/year), alongside PiperFEA, PiperISO and the support selection tool. Unlike an FEA run it executes entirely in your browser from the same calculation core the free calculators use — there is no per-run cost and nothing leaves the tab. All the ASME code calculators stay free with no account. Details at /pricing/.
Can I use it for a rack or a braced frame?
No. The five configurations it ships are statically determinate cantilever arrangements, which is what makes the answer closed-form and reproducible. A pipe rack with continuous beams over several bays, a braced frame, or a support whose flexibility feeds back into the piping analysis needs a proper frame solver. Use PiperSTR for the standalone support and take the rack to structural software.