Corrosion prevention

The feature that makes our products interesting for corrosion protection is their very high mechanical strength and impact resistance. This, combined with good adhesion, provides an excellent answer to many problems inadequately solved by other products.

Pipe support areas

How many times have you seen support areas like this (picture top-left)? We visit countless refineries/petrochemical plants/ships/offshore platforms and see this type of situation. Often the pipe is so badly corroded that the owner will replace the whole pipe rather than run the risk of lifting the pipe from its support to treat it!

To solve this problem, over a number of years we have developed FibaWearpad, a pre-moulded 120-220 "pipe section" which is fixed to the underside of the pipe at the point of the support. It is easy to apply with no welding or hot-work necessary (picture top-right).

Pipes running underground or in the above/below ground interface

Traditionally protected by bitumen or tapes, these products are nevertheless too easily damaged by soil movement, temperature or UV. Over the last fifteen years, a number of oil and gas companies have successfully used FibaRoll to protect these areas.

Field welds

Field welds are difficult to maintain and often the first area to show corrosion. In some of the harshest environments, FibaRoll has been shown to outperform most other systems even when blasting of the field weld was not possible. The left-hand picture opposite is from an offshore platform which has now been in the North Sea (UK) since 2002 without breakdown. A significant reason for using FibaRoll can be the speed of application, because its application requires only one visit to the weld.

The second picture here is taken from Sakhalin Island. As you can see the contractors are dressed up to withstand the extreme cold! A useful feature of FibaRoll is its ability to fully cure at -15C without additional heat sources.

A special system has been developed with FibaRoll to obtain good adhesion to PE to protect PE coated line pipe. This easily applied system also provides good cathodic disbondment (large picture).

Damage to coatings

Every construction site has pipes stacked prior to construction which look like this (picture bottom-left)! Although perfect out of the coating workshop, by the time they are delivered to site a significant proportion of the coating are damaged. And more damage can be expected as the pipe is manoeuvred into position. Not only is this important in terms of compromising the long term integrity of the corrosion protection system; it also requires substantial extra work onsite to repair - involving extra men and scaffolding.

The FTI coating, FibaShield, is fibre reinforced and applied by machine. It is not impossible to damage but extremely difficult. The last picture here was taken after the pipes had been dragged over heavily corroded rebar. Despite this harsh treatment the coating passed a spark test, proving that any damage was only cosmetic.