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R4D-S, Leak in subsea environment – Middle East
High-performance composite repair solution for pipe reinforcement

Overview

The objective of the repairs performed by 3X ENGINEERING and its local distributor was to reinforce a subsea pipe damaged by 4 defects: 1 leak and 3 external defects situated at 6-meter depth.

Results

After several repairs conducted underwater around the world, 3X ENGINEERING confirms its efficiency and capabilities in subsea pipeline maintenance. This job was a great challenge because of the large pipe diameter and the number of defects situated on 4 different locations for a total repair length of 21m. A special thanks to client representative and diving company, which provided very competent divers and help us and our local distributor to deliver the repair successfully and on time.

Defect type
 Leak & 3 external defects in subsea environment
Details
 48” OD – max. operating temp. 25°C – calculated pressure 259 psi
Location
 MIDDLE EAST
3X Product type
 REINFORCEKiT 4D Subsea (R4D-S)

SCOPE OF WORK


According to ISO 24.817 and 3X repair calculations, 30 composite layers of REINFORCEKiT 4D SUBSEA (R4D-S) product have been determined to repair the leak and 4 layers for each corroded defects.

Underwater, several preliminary operations have been performed prior to surface preparation (gritblasting) to get a good surface roughness (60-micron surface profile).

3X wrapping reinforcements have been performed following several stages:

  1. Primer application on the whole defect surface to provide a good adhesion of the composite materials.
  2. One composite plate coated with subsea filler positioned over the hole and strongly fixed with ratchet belts during curing time of 24 hours (only for leak repair).
  3. Primer applied on the whole pipe surface before wrapping.
  4. Kevlar® tape pre-impregnated with 3X subsea resin (using special 3X BOBIPREG device) wrapped around the pipe. Thirty layers were necessary to seal the leak (i.e. about 15 passes of 50% overlap) and 4 layers for the 3 following defects.
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