UA Engineer’s Superlaminates are Industrial Surgery for Failing Infrastructure
Professor Emeritus Mo Ehsani might have an answer to the deadly threats posed by the failing infrastructure we rely on but rarely fix or upgrade -- fiber-reinforced polymers.
Devastation in San Bruno, California, was caused by a gas pipeline explosion. In the aftermath it was discovered that a 28-foot faulty section of pipe, weighing about 3,000 pounds, landed about 100 feet away from the blast crater. (Photo: Brocken Inaglory, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Beneath our feet are many thousands of miles of pipe, some more than 100 years old. Gas, oil, water and sewage seep, and sometimes gush, through corroded joints and defective welds every day. Pipeline owners often know nothing about the condition of the lines they operate, and even less about where the next gas explosion or contaminated city water supply will occur.
Even when problems with failing infrastructure can be detected, the methods of repair currently available are technologically outdated, logistically complex and prohibitively expensive. A University of Arizona engineering professor may have a solution to this infrastructure problem that's growing deadlier each year.
New reports by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Gas Technology Institute could mean fewer gas explosions due to pipeline ruptures, like the one that happened a year ago in San Bruno, Calif.
Quality Fail
On Sept. 9, 2010, a 54-year-old gas pipeline ruptured in a residential area of San Bruno. The cause was a defective weld in a 30-inch-diameter pipeline. The gas explosion blasted a crater about 72 feet long and 26 feet wide. The explosion and fire killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes.
The NTSB accident report estimates that almost 50 million cubic feet of natural gas were released during the incident. "The accident pipe would not have met generally accepted industry quality control and welding standards in 1956," the Aug. 30 report states. "Indicating that those standards were overlooked or ignored."
The month before the NTSB report was released, the Gas Technology Institute published a test report stating that PipeMedic, a new technology that uses carbon and glass laminates to repair and replace failing pipelines, met or exceeded industry standards. GTI is a nonprofit research and development organization that serves the natural gas industry.