This video shows a patent-pending technique for internal spot repair of oil and gas transmission steel pipelines.
According to the US Department of Transportation statistics, there are 319,000 miles of transmission pipelines carrying hazardous materials in the US alone. After decades of service, these pipes are approaching their design service life. Corrosion of steel causes weakness in the pipe and can lead to failure of the pipe with life safety considerations. Leaks in the pipes contaminate the environment and could also lead to accidental explosion.
In 2021, QuakeWrap Inc. was the only company selected by the USDOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA - pronounced FIMSA) to receive a 1.2 million dollar award for developing a technology to address this problem. The research under this SBIR grant focused on a technology that allows fully structural internal repair of a pipe without cutting a trench - a technique commonly referred to as "trenchless".
1. Various layers of a special carbon fabric saturated with a proprietary resin (collectively referred to as SuperLaminate) are wrapped around a packer. An automatic guide vehicle (AGV) and the packer are inserted into the pipe from an existing access point that is normally used for pigging the pipe.
2. The AGV pulls the packer and other equipment behind it, navigating through the 90 degree bends and curves in both horizontal and vertical direction, guiding the assembly to the point of repair hundreds of feet away.
3. At that point, the packer is remotely inflated to expand and press the multiple layers of carbon fabric against the surface of the pipe with a predesigned pressure. Simultaneously, heating elements are activated to accelerate the curing of the resin.
4.Once the SuperLaminate is cured, the packer is deflated, leaving the repair material on the internal surface of the pipe.
5. The AGV, the packer and other equipment are extracted out of the pipe from the same entry point.
Tests conducted during this SBIR project have demonstrated that the technology is capable of quickly restoring the full capacity of damaged or corroded pipes with diameters of 12 inches or larger, including 90-degree bends from a single entry point.
#Pipeline #OilAndGas #Repair #Corrosion #CarbonFiber #USDOT #PHMSA #Innovation #Infrastructure
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