Testing and Evaluation of a Polymeric Spray Applied Pipe Lining for Pressure Pipes Renewal

Abstract

Issues related to buried and underground piping are very important. There are significant differences between buried and non-buried piping. Buried piping has unique degradation mechanisms, degrading from both the interior and exterior. Since the systems and equipment involved are ‘out of sight’, the normal surveillance methods typically employed; including system performance monitoring and walkdowns by operators and engineering staff, cannot be easily applied on underground infrastructure. Ageing pipes have increasing numbers of leaks, localized or generalized corrosion, pitting, cracking, and other forms of degradation. The mitigation and repair of such degradation is essential to the continued economical operation. Preventing buried piping degradation can reduce the frequency of such events, and the expense of dealing with emergency repairs. A lot of watermain underground infrastructure have exceeded their design life and continue deteriorating to the point of catastrophe, thus, there is an urgent need to implement new methods and technologies that can restore them. The trenchless technology renewal method of Polymeric spray-applied pipe lining (SAPL) is a cost-effective and versatile method with minimum ground access requirements. Polymeric SAPL is applied inside of a pipeline for either corrosion protection, or to increase the load bearing capacity of existing pipelines, or to create a new standalone polymeric pipe within the existing pipe. Lack of comprehensive available standards, design guide, testing and evaluation of Polymeric SAPL, has limited its acceptance in the industry to only localized and temporary repairs. There are some data needs and gaps for evaluating the use of full-structural SAPL for water main rehabilitation. The objective of this paper is to evaluate Polymeric SAPL as a solution to structurally renew and enhance structural capacity of deteriorated pressure pipes. The evaluation process utilizes data derived from Hydrostatic Burst Test, on a stand-alone Polymeric SAPL thermoset plastic liner under actual loading conditions, without the host pipe.

Techniques