Push up your

The treatment of pipeline sleeve materials during installation is essential to overall performance.

Ing. Sander Hofstee and Neil Gill, Seal for Life Industries,

the Netherlands, present a time-efficient tool that enables maximum installation comfort.

Over the years, the oil and gas pipeline industry has become more demanding. By introducing new technologies, pipelines are now expected to last for a period of 50 years or longer. Whilst the

pipeline and coating system is manufactured under ideal conditions in the factory, the joined sections are protected in the field. Despite this, we expect these joint protections

to last for the same period of time. Given the fact that the application of the protective systems to the field joint area is exposed to environmental influences, one can imagine the challenge to ensure a perfect application time of every joint where 100% repeatability is required.

Knowing these great expectations, we need to ask ourselves if we pay enough respect to the treatment of the heat shrinkable sleeve materials during the installation process. The treatment of these materials during installation is critical to ensuring the required long lasting performance and the materials should not be negatively affected or rely on installation by open flame.

In addition, the newly introduced infra-red radiation does not always do only good to the HSS materials. Since the industry is insisting on the shortest installation times

Figure 1. Direct contact between heatsource and Shrink material avoids weathering conditions influencing the installation process. The units are classified as IP44.

SLEEVES

possible, manufacturers are challenged to introduce materials and equipment to make this possible. The downside of this development is the exposure of the heat shrink materials to high temperature impact in extremely short periods, making the materials shrink.

Although many focus on reducing shrinking times, it is certainly not the feature to focus on when it comes to long-term performance. Seal for Life Industries’ duty is to support the industry with innovative ideas in line with clients expectations and demands, placing focus on respecting the characteristics of the backing materials and at the same time the inflow of the mastic/hotmelt adhesive. This ensures a full wetting of the substrate and creates optimal bond. To ensure such inflow, we need to respect the softening temperature of the mastic/hotmelt and the time needed for it for completely wetting the substrate, respectively the bond temperature and bonding time.

An effective tool For the optimal performance and shortest installation time of the Seal for Life heat shrink sleeve systems, the company developed a system that respects the characteristics of the sleeve materials and allows maximum installation comfort and performance. Seal for Life developed the very first intelligent assistant tool in heat shrink sleeve installation, the KELVIN.

The KELVIN offers optimal and guaranteed installation comfort and performance by ‘reading’ the characteristics of the sleeve materials that are

applied. The KELVIN also creates an optimal HSE situation. The need of applying the closure patch by open flame prior to the operation is no longer needed. The installation of the closure patch is done in the same process.

The build in sensor technology recognises the softening point of the adhesive layer as well as the duration of the liquid stage the adhesive is kept in, the so called bonding phase, and thus manual inspection of the temperature during installation is not needed. By keeping pressure onto the sleeve body during the total installation, it furthermore ensures the liquid mastic/hotmelt is forced to flow into all irregularities of the substrate it is in contact with.

By using the KELVIN for installation of the heat shrink sleeves, heat is transferred directly from the heat source, which is in direct contact with the sleeve material, onto and through the backing to reach the mastic/hotmelt. This direct way of heating makes sure that no weathering elements, such as wind, rain or moist, can affect the process. The heat and pressure create a heat bath of the mastic/hotmelt that can be called the ‘au bain marie’ way of heating. It creates the most homogenous heating of the mastic/hotmelt in which the heat is transferred onto the (primed) body of the pipeline avoiding the often dramatic quenching effect. Moreover, the KELVIN and its build in sensor technology make sure that overheating of the sleeve materials does not occur. With the introduction of the KELVIN, Seal for Life brings the first intelligent and automated system to the market that allows guaranteed and uniform installation around a solid body of all heat shrinkable polyolefin sleeves from the Seal for Life range.

From an environmental point of view, the KELVIN avoids the need of extreme energy input as there is no need to recover losses during the installation process. Other than in open flame or IR, ways of shrinking the loss of energy is

Figure 2. Compact and lightweight versions. Complete HSS installation without the need for any open flame treatment throughout the process.

Figure 3. Excellent heat transfer ensures an optimal heat bath of the adhesive.

World Pipelines / REPRINTED FROM APRIL 2015

minimal making use of the ‘au bain marie’ way of heating. With the ‘au bain marie’ method, the heat is trapped between the heat source and the substrate to ensure an optimal heat bath. It is different from the IR way of heating in which the heat is beamed through the backing, with a high chance of damage before it can liquefy the adhesive. Also, the IR beam is extremely intense and the process time is kept to a minimum, which is the opposite of what we need to get and keep the adhesive in a liquid phase to ensure the inflow and wetting of the substrate.

State of the art registrationThe PLC driven KELVIN has a pre-programmed set of parameters corresponding with the specific sleeve types offered within the range of Seal for Life. By selecting the right sleeve type that is installed, automatically the minimum bond temperature and bonding time are selected. Every KELVIN is equipped with a decent set of sensors, embedded at several locations along the heat source, which allows it to register the temperature output and input to the sleeve materials without human intervention. This ensures an accurate heating process in which the different parts of the KELVIN adjust themselves individually to create the homogenous heating and shrinking. Furthermore, it registers precisely the whole process, making it possible for operators and clients to check on the installation. Different types of the PLC units are available on the KELVIN, of which the most sophisticated version allows full remotely programming and reading. The contractor or client can login from his desktop to check on the status of the installation and the ‘as installed’ parameters. They are able to print off the results for the installation reports.

Advantages of the KELVIN:

) Shortest installation time – operation by two engineers.

) Easy operation by fully pre-programmed PLC.

) Available in sizes ranging from 10 - 52 in.

) Power requirement 4 Watt/cm2.

) Maximum power to weight ratio – weight of 16 in. unit is only 15 kg.

) Maximum technology to cost ratio.

) No specific need for cranes.

) Multiple units can operate at same time, dramatically reducing the turnaround time.

) Avoids sleeve damage by overheating.

) Avoids installation mistakes.

) Full mobile units.

) No HSE issues.

) Direct contact between sleeve and KELVIN prevents weather conditions influencing the process.

) Allows a variety of shrinkable sleeves to be used, from soft mastic-based shrink sleeves to hard, hot melt shrink sleeves provided with a stiff and hard backing material (e.g. HDPE).

) Operational temperatures of the heating blanket are monitored by temperature sensors connected to the control unit.

) Sleeve shrink temperatures are displayed at the PLC display.

) Consistency of installation – no need to pre apply the closure patch.

) Compact size.

) Minimal packaging space required in confined FJC areas.

) Ultimate bonding of adhesives such as mastics, hotmelts and visco-elastics.

) Easy to install software programme per coating type – remote controlled.

) Extremely lightweight.

) Lowest energy consumption.

) Fast and safe total installation process.

Figure 5. Heat is provided from the outside and is reflected from the pipebody resulting the adhesive to create an ‘au bain marie’ heat bath.

Figure 4. NASA foam inside the hardshell generates equal pressure onto the HSS body during installation.

REPRINTED FROM APRIL 2015 / World Pipelines