Civil & Structure In general, structural pipe is a type of steel construction pipe that meets certain standards of chemical composition and mechanical properties.
This pipe can be used for a wide variety of structural applications and there are variety of types of structural pipe available.
Liberty Coating Company has provided coating applications to structural pipes that have be been used in many industrial projects in the northeastern portion of the US including the Governor Mario M. Cuomo bridge (replacement for the Tappan Zee bridge) and the Freedom Tower at One World Trade Center.
Additionally Liberty Coating Company has provided pipe bending services for basketball posts and football field goal posts that are challenging athletes in our local communities.
Pipelines used in the oil and gas industry vary according to many factors, such as the ‘product’ to be transported, the delivery stage, and whether it’s part of the upstream, midstream, or downstream sector. The main types of pipeline are as follows:
Containment Leak detection, and thus prevention, is one of the most important aspects of containment piping systems. Without an effective and reliable means to sense that a leak has occurred, the additional protection provided by secondary containment is compromised.
Containment issues have been around as long as piping has been used in the water and gas industries. In the 1970s even the electronics manufacturers began placing their underground and aboveground hazardous chemical piping systems within an outer jacket for the sole purpose of preventing leaks from getting into ground water supply.
To provide secondary containment there are design parameters to be considered. Whether the system is a pressure pipe, drain, or waste system has a significant impact on the design, layout, material selection, wall thickness, and leak detection method selected. Whether a system is to be buried or above ground also has a impact on its design.
Similar criteria must be used for the outer piping. The interaction of the inner and outer systems, how they are tied together, the joining method, how joining affects system installation, compatibility of the secondary system, and joining methods for both are all factors in selecting the combination of materials used. Finally, cathodic protection is a factor to both the primary and containment pipe.
The primary pipeline is connected to an anode bed to make the pipe behave as a cathode, so the anode bed corrodes and not the pipe.
Liberty Coating company has provided both interior and exterior coatings for pipes used in containment pipe projects.
District Heating District energy is a proven technology that has been around for decades. Most major cities have a district energy system and landmark buildings around the world receive thermal energy from a district system. District heating is an underground infrastructure asset where thermal energy is provided to multiple buildings from a central energy plant or plants. Steam or hot water produced at the plant is transmitted 24/7 through highly insulated underground thermal piping networks. The thermal energy is transferred to the building’s heating system, avoiding the need for boilers in individual buildings. District heating networks are useful energy infrastructure assets for cities, communities, and campuses.
Value factors to District Heating Projects:
The pipes can be thermally insulated with polyurethane foam or mineral wool. External protection is ensured by either a coating or taping application. Liberty Coating has a variety of either of these applications for applications to pipes in this industry.
Electric Operating and maintaining underground high-voltage transmission lines in a major urban area is a huge challenge for any utility provider, as reliability and availability are of the utmost importance. But also a challenge due to pipes having to twist around existing underground structures. Consequently, pipe bending can be a necessity for what sometimes is thought of as a spaghetti-like mix of piping found with electrical cable usage pipe. Unlike the miles of straight lines frequently found in the oil and gas industry, which usually include launch and retrieval stations for “pigs” (devices inserted into pipelines to do a variety of tasks, including cleaning and inspecting the pipe), electrical pipes usually have elbows that make tasks more difficult.
Liberty Coating Company provides pipe bending services for various utility industry clients.
Gas & Oil Hundreds of thousands of miles of pipelines traverse the United States. They connect producing areas to refineries and chemical plants while delivering the products American consumers and businesses need. Steel pipes are one of the most common types of pipes used in the gas and oil industries. Pipes, typically made of carbon steel or low alloy steel, are generally less expensive to produce than tubes (the alternative to pipe). The inside diameter of the pipe is the key measurement, as it tells you how much product can flow through it. The pressure rating, yield strength and ductility are also essential properties. With pipes, the size designated by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and wall thickness are the most important numbers to factor when coating a pipe. Pipeline operators are implementing integrity management programs to ensure their assets are maintained. These strategies include using in-line inspection tools, or “smart pigs,” to determine the condition of the pipeline. Smart pigs can detect corrosion, cracking or other defects in the pipe wall and are used to plan preventive maintenance. Typical reasons for the failure of gas pipes include pipe seam failures, corrosion, material failure and defective welding.
Natural Gas Natural gas currently supplies more than one-half of the energy consumed by residential and commercial customers, The U.S. natural gas pipeline network is a highly integrated transmission and distribution grid that can transport natural gas to and from nearly any location. The steel pipes used in the network connect production wells, processing facilities, storage facilities and business & home users. The corrosive “sour gas” content levels in some natural gas sources necessitate the use of in internal coating on the pipes. As with all utility pipe corrosion from external sources is also a problem. Liberty Coating has a variety of external and interior coatings to protect corrosion failures.
Petrochemical Steel alloys (Duplex and Carbon) are usually the two most common materials of choice in the petrochemical industry for pipes.
Unlike similar steels, duplex also displays improved resistance to localized corrosion, particularly pitting, crevice corrosion and stress corrosion cracking. Due to its ferritic qualities, it also shows very good resistance to stress corrosion cracking, as well as good ductility when compared to standard austenitic steels.
In some cases, the strength of duplex stainless steel can be up to double that of the most commonly used grades of stainless steel.
In terms of applications, piping products are used for a wide variety of functions such as:
• Transportation of various liquids and gases, both on land and marine
• Structural and mechanical components of processing plants
• Heat exchangers
• Cooling pipes
Both internal and internal coatings are popular for applications to petrochemical pipes. Internal coatings facilitate flow of the liquid or gas through the pipe. Also internal corrosion protection is important from both natural and synthetic elements. External coatings will provide both corrosion protection from natural elements and add to buoyancy protection in marine usage.
Liberty Coating Company provides solutions for coating applications for a variety of needs of the Petrochemical industry.
Waste Water Wastewater is mostly water that has already been used by either human or industrial processes. Such processes add elements to the water. Small though these elements might be, they are enough of a risk to preclude use without treatment.
The systems of pipes that transport water to and from the source (such as a treatment plant) to the customer are often categorized from largest to smallest in diameter size as transmission or trunk mains, distribution mains, service lines, and premise plumbing. Transmission or trunk mains usually convey large amounts of water over long distances such as from a treatment facility to a storage tank within the distribution system.
The waste water industry mainly uses ductile iron pipe. The difference between traditional cast iron and modern-day ductile iron is the shape of the graphite used in their production processes. While cast iron has small flakes of graphite, ductile iron contains spherical graphite nodules. Because of the spherical shape of the graphite, ductile iron is often called spheroidal iron or nodular cast iron. Ductile iron can be easily cast and machined. It has an excellent strength to weight ratio. Ductile iron can be made for a much lower cost than steel.
Cast iron pipe is primarily used for drain, waste, and vent plumbing applications, while ductile iron pipe—developed in 1948—is used in water and wastewater systems. One of the benefits of using cast iron is that there are fewer problems related to expansion and contraction when compared to a plastic product. It also has better crush loads for underground installation. Cast iron is up to 10 times stronger than thermoplastic materials, so it does not need to rely on the compaction of the sidefill to support the pipe wall.
Distribution mains are typically smaller in diameter than the transmission mains and generally follow the city streets. Service lines carry water from the distribution main to the building or property being served. Service lines can be of any diameter size depending on how much water is required to serve a particular customer. Regardless of the size there are concerns about protecting the outside integrity of the pipe from corrosion and the interior of the pipe to ensure optimal flow. Liberty Coating Company’s coating applications services provide solutions for both of these needs.
Water & Sewer The water and sewer water pipe sectors are focused on the difference between potable and non-potable water. Potable water is used for human consumption such as drinking fountains, showers, toilets, hand-wash basins, cooking, etc. Non-potable water is water that is not safe for human consumption. However such non-potable water may not necessarily mean it is sewer water, but rather it could be water that is either yet to be treated or water used by humans for cleaning purposes (sometimes called gray water). Liberty Coating’s application processes for the water and sewer industry can focus on external coatings like Pritec and also internal coatings like Protecto 401.
In an actively producing oilfield, flowlines connect to a single wellhead. Their purpose is to move the raw product from the wellhead to the gathering lines. They carry a mixture of oil, gas, water and sand and are normally no more than 12” diameter in size.
Feeder pipelines are used to move the product from processing facilities and storage tanks to the long-distance transmission pipelines. The product may be crude oil, natural gas or natural gas liquids. Feeder lines are typically 6 to 12” diameter.