So I have been working as a design engineer for a little over a year on pipelines and have been on several different projects. I do a good bit of Caesar modeling, and have begun seeing patterns in how other engineers design mainline valves, vs how I have to design supports for them.

I see lots of design where a pipeline 45's out of the ground, has a support, valve, support, and then 45's back into the ground. The issue I always seem to run into is uplift of the pipeline on the supports. With this setup, Caesar always gives me large uplift forces, and many times does not even rest on the support during operation.

Is this a common issue among others, or am I doing something wrong? People continue to use this design whereas I imagine there are much better alternatives available.

It's common anywhere you have two supports separated by a vertical section of pipe, thanks to thermal effects and gravity in direct opposition. This can be mitigated if desired/required by pushing the supports away from each other, or by trying to model actual flexibilities through steel modeling.

I would caution against trying to buck this trend, and rather invoke B31.3 319.4.1(a) or (b), when possible.

Note that those supports are often there for when bolts are removed, and not necessarily for the sake of stress.