This actually is a huge deal.
Nothing here is been said regarding chemical erosion which is a
serious issue even for steel pipes. However, the range of epoxies
available and the industrial experience available suggest to me that
only the worst situations will remain intractable. The reason we use
stainless steel in a chemical facility is because it will at least
resist erosion for a while. I also presume by now that basaltic
lined pipes dominate those applications.
Water mains and sewage systems all will be easy. Since most such
infrastructure is all looking for a better solution this is very
timely.
Way more important however are gas and oil pipes. The market
continues to expend well ahead of our present ability to produce
competent welders. Welding a proper seam on a pipeline is not a job
for the ill trained. Which is why they are so well paid.
This approach reduces the task to the semi skilled level and it
simply becomes a lot more like the present plumbing industry.
Remember when they were effectively pipe fitters?
The key take home is that our entire industrial plant is organized
around piping and installation is labor intensive and actually
generally difficult. These pipes will be even open to manhandling
often enough to make a big difference.
UA Engineering
Professor Uses Aerospace Materials to Build Endless Green Pipeline
By Pete Brown - August
16, 2012, 11:39 am
Carbon fiber fabric
and lightweight honeycomb materials, plus mobile manufacturing
platform, make infinite pipeline technology cheaper and greener while
boosting local economies.
Mo Ehsani, Professor
Emeritus of Civil Engineering at the University of Arizona, has
designed a new, lightweight underground pipe he says could transform
the pipeline construction industry.
Instead of
conventional concrete or steel, Ehsani's new pipe consists of a
central layer of lightweight plastic honeycomb, similar to that used
in the aerospace industry, sandwiched between layers of
resin-saturated carbon fiber fabric.
In combination, these
materials are as strong, or stronger, than conventional steel and
concrete pipes, which are time-consuming and expensive to manufacture
and transport.
Concrete and steel
pipes are built in short sections to fit on standard 18-wheel trucks,
but Ehsani's new pipe can be built onsite as a single section of
virtually infinite length, hence the product name InfinitPipe.
The heavy industrial
manufacturing processes, long-distance trucking, and leak-prone
joints used in steel and concrete pipe construction exact a heavy
toll on the environment, not to mention bottom line, which is why
Ehsani's company, QuakeWrap, is marketing InfinitPipe as the world's
first "green" pipe.
"There are really
two aspects to this invention," Ehsani said. "One is this
new type of lightweight honeycomb pipe. Second is our ability to give
clients an endless or infinite pipe, without a joint. That is a big,
big breakthrough in the pipeline industry that has implications for
natural gas, oil, water, and sewer pipes."
A literally infinite
pipe is, of course, not feasible, but Ehsani's method of
manufacturing could create extremely long sections of joint-free
pipe. "We could make a section a mile long," he said. "Of
course, every thousand feet or so, you'd need an expansion joint so
the pipe can breathe, but this would certainly not be the same
concern we have today, where we have to put a joint every 20 feet."
The secret of
producing virtually endless pipe sections lies in the manufacturing
methodology. Ehsani wraps the various layers of carbon fabric and
honeycomb around a mandrel, a kind of tubular mold with a
cross-sectional shape that matches the pipe's internal cross-section,
which is typically, but not always, circular.
"We basically
start with a tube and wrap the materials on the outside," Ehsani
said. "A couple of layers of carbon fabric, then we put on the
honeycomb and then a couple of layers of carbon or glass fiber on the
outside. This becomes the pipe."
After testing this
manufacturing method, Ehsani had a "eureka" moment when he
realized that the finished pipe could be partially slid off the
mandrel, and more pipe could be added to the section of pipe
remaining on the mandrel. "I thought, why don't we just slip
this off of the mandrel and continue making this pipe?" Ehsani
said. "Never stop."
Carbon fiber, resin
and aerospace honeycomb are all very light materials that can be
transported at a fraction of the cost of conventional prefabricated
steel and concrete pipe, and Ehsani said he is looking for partners
to develop an automated mobile unit to make the pipes onsite.
"Imagine having a
truck with a mandrel in the back," Ehsani said. "You start
making the pipe on, say, a 20-foot mandrel, and pull off 18 feet so
you have two feet left on the mandrel," he said. "Then you
just move the truck forward and drop the pipe in the ground, and keep
adding pipe."
As if virtually
eliminating transportation costs, slashing manufacturing costs, and
reducing environmental impact weren't enough, Ehsani sees this pipe
technology creating jobs and boosting local economies.
"Suppose you have
a pipeline project in a developing nation," Ehsani said. "You
could ship the raw materials to the workers there and they could make
this pipe in their own village. No matter what size or shape they
want, all they need to do is build a mandrel and make the pipe on the
spot. We would be making it with local people under our supervision."
Closer to home, Ehsani
cites the recently awarded $10.7 million contract to build the first
four miles of pipe for the billion dollar Navajo-Gallup water supply
project, which involves building a 280-mile pipeline to supply water
to more than 40 Navajo communities in New Mexico and Arizona.
"The contractor
is making a 42-inch diameter pipe for four miles, which works out to
$507 a foot," Ehsani said. "Really, we could have that pipe
built faster with the help of local labor and put it in place sooner,
without having to wait to order it and ship it, and all of that
expense."
Ehsani said he didn't
really set out to turn pipeline construction on its head, but the
project took on a life of its own. "We developed this originally
with the intention of fixing existing pipes," he said. "Then
as we started getting into this thing I realized it could be a real
game-changing breakthrough technology."
The breakthrough did
not happen overnight. In the late 1980s, Ehsani and Hamid
Saadatmanesh, both of the UA department of civil engineering and
engineering mechanics, pioneered research into repairing and
retrofitting bridges and buildings using fiber-reinforced polymers,
so the technology is well established.
"There's a lot of
history on these materials," Ehsani said, which has enabled him
to refine the pipe manufacturing process to use smaller amounts of
better quality materials. "Because we're using our materials in
a smart manner, we can afford to use the higher end material,"
Ehsani said. "So instead of cheaper glass fabric, we use carbon.
Instead of polyester resin, we use epoxy. Because we don't have a
solid core, we can afford to put the expensive material on the skin."
If Ehsani's concept
for mobile pipe manufacture using lightweight components takes off,
he envisions an industry freed from the shackles of heavy industrial
plant. "As a business model, a company that wants to get into
pipeline manufacturing with one of these mobile trucks could have a
factory anywhere in the world," he said. "You could be
doing a job in Hawaii today and next week be working in Panama.
You're no longer limited by where your factory is."
Ehsani will present a
paper on his new pipe technology at the American Society of
Civil EngineersPipelines 2012 Conference, Aug. 19-22 in Miami.
Added Aug. 21, 2012
This is not Ehsani's
first invention related to pipelines. Last year we reported on his
PipeMedic laminates that are used as industrial stents to repair
deteriorated pipes [UA Engineer's Superlaminates are Industrial
Surgery for Failing Infrastructure]. The first application of that
product, to repair a high-pressure gas pipeline in New Jersey,
received Trenchless Technology magazine's 2011 project
of the year award.
No comments:
Post a Comment