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Topic:
Building the Fluid Highways of the future- Long Pipes Fluid Highway;
the development program so far.
Authors:
Neil Graham, Deryck Graham, Alexander Lapitsky
Presenter:
Neil Graham
Organisation:
Long Pipes Pty Ltd; Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Abstract:
The world needs a new lower cost more efficient means of fluid transportation for oil,
gas, water etc. Like almost all new technologies that we are working with today from
rockets, to fighter jets, to cars and now pipelines the answer appears to be
composites. These materials are many times stronger and lighter than steel. They
are inherently corrosion resistant or immune to corrosion. They can be made to
sense fell alert the operator or defend the pipe. Yet any one material on its own
cannot do the job so we are pioneering a new pipeline technology that combines
many composite materials and promises to produce a completely new technology in
pipelines that are made continuously in the field at high speed.
We call it the Fluid Highway .
This is the story of; the history, the development to date, the trials, the tribulations
and the successes on the development road, to produce the Long Pipes; Fluid
Highway .
The GRE fiberglass pipe that we were the agent for was one of the best on the
market and our company Vortex was installing them on Barrow Island which is a
nature reserve and they could not leak, so any leaks had to be fixed immediately.
The problem was that our pipe joints leaked; 90-95% were OK but some leaked.
When they leaked the pipe had to be taken apart cleaned resealed and reinstalled.
This was costing a lot of money. In desperation our Managing Director, Trevor
Gossatti said that You have to make a pipe without joints that could run forever; a
Long Pipe without joints! So this is where the name of the company comes from.
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Figure 3 Flight of Eagle 150 X-TS for fire spotters and trainers
We sold this company to the Malaysian Government Consortium in 1992 and it has
subsequently become Asias largest aerospace company, CTRM.
Figure 4 Patent drawing of the Quickstep Pressure chamber with vibrator at the top
Figure 5 A large Quickstep curing plant, for an integrated space structure this demonstrates integrated
melded parts e.g. for full wings and spars and rocket casings
To achieve high speed production we were working on a new high speed resin
delivery system that produces space grade parts with AA auto finish for the rapid
manufacture of car and aerospace parts know as Resin Spray Transmission (RST).
After 7 years of development work and demonstrations Quickstep won one of the
largest contracts in the world for the composite components on the JSF worth
approximately A$800M over the life of the JSF project.
We were also working on the Next Generation (NG) version of the JSF using our
Spar and Melding technology to bond/melt/weld the wings and spars together. This
is being done in the US and in Australia.
Quickstep is now Australias largest independent composite aerospace
manufacturer.
So with this background we had a good working knowledge and understanding of
advanced composites, resin flows and fibre systems for aerospace applications with
an expertise in design.
Composites are very different to steel as they require the loads to be carried by the
fibres not the mass of the structure. This means that the fibres must be aligned with
the load path or the matrix will be required to hold the load, or the part fails or
fatigues rapidly.
NO TECHNOLOGY FROM QUICKSTEP HAS BEEN USED IN THE PRODUCTION
OF THE LONG PIPES FLUID HIGHWAY
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1.3 The Project: Turning the concept of the Long Pipe joint free
continuous pipe into the Long Pipes Fluid Highway
Well you would think that with that background we could turn the concept into reality
quickly. I thought that it would just take a few weeks, to a few months to make the
first Long Pipe. The reality was very different; it took many years to even work out
how to make the first pipe. We had so many failures; we tried so many ways of
making a pipe and we gave up many times. We tried resin baths, resin injection, it
worked but only for a few meters and it was very slow. We tried using a pre-preg
plant as used by the re-lining industry it only worked for a few hundred meters and
the quality was poor with too many air bubbles trapped in the laminate. We were
almost convinced that a Long Pipe without a joint could not be made.
Then in October 2012, more than 4 years after the first simple thought; we worked
out how to make the first pipe and made it work in the factory!
Now in 2015 we have a production system that works in the field and this is the
result of the work and efforts of a whole team of people not just a few .but I am
jumping ahead of the
story.
Figure 8 Timeline taken to turn the concept into a production system to make the Fluid Highway
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Figure 11 Drawing showing the loads on a pipe the fibres in a Long Pipe are 0/90/45/45 to hold
these loads
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Figure 13 The Sock showing the inner liner with fiberglass layers encasing the inner liner
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To make the pipe continuously to produce the Long Pipes Fluid Highway , without
a joint, the sock from one container is spliced, just like a continuous rope, or a
Hollywood movie, to the sock in the next container. In this way there is no full stop
and the splice is structurally no different to any other part of the pipe.
You can watch the video of the pipe being produced in the field at:
www.longpipes.com.au
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Figure 16 Finished pipe showing: outer casing/reinforcement in the middle/felt/TPU Inner liner
This shows the multilayered product that we produce in field. In this way we produce
a composite of a number of different materials each doing its own specific task; the
inner liner protects the reinforcements from attack from the fluids being transported;
the reinforcement is the strongest that can be achieved for the weight and materials
used to hold the loads and the outer casing protects the reinforcements from attack
from the outside world.
It is just like a hydraulic hose but rigid with an inner liner, a layer of reinforcement
and an outer casing to protect the reinforcements from the environment.
The first thing to recognise about a Long Pipe Fluid Highway is that:
A LONG PIPE FLUID HIGHWAY IS NOT A FIBERGLASS PIPE
The fiberglass and resin never come in contact with the fluids being transported!
The fiberglass never comes in contact with the outside environment.
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Figure 17 Pipe made in Factory September 2014 gentle curves are possible
Figure 18 Pipe in the field December 2014 long distances are possible
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However this means we are new, so new, that we are doing all the tests that we can,
to prove verify and support the findings and benefits that we have demonstrated or
think that we have demonstrated so far.
We need to develop the data to support our conclusions and we are working at that
by hoop, hydraulic and laminate testing as well as raw materials data as supplied by
our suppliers and in field testing.
Based on the provisos above we have found many successes/benefits using these
materials in these unique ways to make a unique composite the Long Pipes Fluid
Highway
With the unique methods and materials that we use we can now tailor the pipe to suit
the materials to be transported down to the molecular layer.
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4.0 The year ahead; the first little steps onto the Fluid
Highway
We expect to complete the first long runs being 4 kms shortly. Then multiple runs of
process water and hydro-transportation lines for a mining company of up to a total of
90kms. Then if this is successful and certification completed up to 50kms of brine
line for a gas project in Queensland; after this entry to the US market; then we will
see what happens next.
There is a long way to go to get to the world using the Fluid Highway but we are
clearly taking the first steps and we will keep the PTC Berlin 2015 informed with the
latest information as we present the talk to the conference in Session 2, Design and
Construction, June 8th.
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