A Houston company specializing in the repair and rehabilitation oil & gas industry pipeline reports that it has successfully completed phase one of a nanotechnologybased research project. A SBIR grant from the US National Science Foundation funded Pipe Wrap’s research, which involved increasing the endurance of the company’s current product lines by the incorporation of nanoparticles.
‘We are pleased with the phase one research findings,’ said Genevieve Withers, the company’s founder. ‘The broader impact and commercial potential of this NSF project will be a cost-effective, user-friendly composite pipe repair product with an operational design life of over 50 years.’ repair kit for the consumer industry. In 2006, the company introduced the A+ Wrap, a repair system for highpressure gas pipelines, and today it has ten different product lines targeting corrosion, insulation and repair.
The latest additions are FormaShield and Atlas Carbon Wrap, repair systems designed to bond to irregular shapes, help with anomalies and strengthen pipes cost effectively.
Atlas CFE is said to be stronger than e-glass and offer the highest tensile strength, requiring fewer layers to make a repair. Pipe Wrap is now developing a high temperature carbon system that can take temperatures of 429°F. Formashield (pictured above) is described as a user-friendly A to B part one to one mixture that forms well around pipeline configurations.
