JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #87 - March 2014 Special JEC Europe - 31

Oil & gas

Novel composite clamps for pipeline repairs
This innovation has been developed
as a repair system for pipes with
leaking through-wall defects, to be
used in the Oil, Gas and Petrochemical (OG&P) industry. The clamp is
comprised of two half shell sections
with flanges, cylindrical in shape to
conform to the pipe. During installation, the flanges are brought together
and bolted in position to secure the
repair. There is a small gap present
between the pipe and inside of the
composite clamp. The clamps currently on the market are all metallic,
making the composite stand-off clamp
described here a world first. Standoff clamps are used in the OG&P
industry all around the world, and
have potential applications outside
OG&P, in industries such as water
distribution, resources, and energy
production. The composite stand-off

clamp has significant potential in the
global market as a direct replacement
of existing metallic clamps due to
benefits such as lighter weight and
corrosion resistance. In summary, the
key benefits of the novel composite
stand-off clamps over the current
metallic solutions are as follows:
- Rapid delivery of custom-made
composite stand-off clamp solutions,
resulting in shorter lead time repair
deployment and reduced downtime
- Reduced weight when using composite vs. steel (75% weight reduction
for out-of-water installation, 85%
weight reduction for in-water installation) resulting in simplified installation infrastructure and a reduced
number of personnel for each repair
which leads to significant cost savings
in installation;

Winner: Advanced Composite Structures
Australia Pty Ltd. (Australia),
PETRONAS (Malaysia)
Partner(s): University of Southern
Queensland (Australia), Pacific ESI Pty
Ltd (Australia), Supacat Pty Ltd (Australia), Newcastle University (UK), Merit
Technology Sdn Bhd (Malaysia)

- Improved corrosion resistance,
reducing the need for inspection and
allowing the possibility of repair life
extension.

Wind energy

New production process: «mapretec technique»
The present automation concepts are
limited to the automated tape laying of the
highly stressed rotor blade spar caps. While
this idea is promising and makes sense, it
is not practicable for the rest of the blade
because of its complex 3D-geometry. This
complexity means that the current automation processes do not function, or only in
part and are far too expensive. A new and
innovative approach was considered in the
government funded project "mapretec". The
two dimensional automated layup of single
NCF-layers to a multiple stack with the
following final contour forming to a 3D-preform. The advantage of this process is that
the preform processing time is obviously decreased compared to conventional preform
processes, with a manageable complexity of
the automation technology. The plain layup
of the single layers to a 2-D preform is done
on a morph field which is equipped with
a flexible membrane. Hydraulic actuators
under the membrane then form the stack

against the rotor blade segment mold which
is placed over the membrane. The preforming process starts at the neutral point of
the stack and then transforms the 2-D stack
into a 3-D preform.
The main advantages of the production
process with the mapretec technique are
the reduction of layup time respectively the
possibility for a parallel production of preforms to reduce the amount of layup work in
the rotorblade mould. Beside the increased
process velocity compared to the manual
process there are further main values of the
mapretec process. The using of sensitive
and flexible hybrid textiles minimise form
and position errors. Additionally the high
accuracy of the process leads to an increased
quality of the later product. Because of the
higher accuracy there is an option to reduce
the number of textile layers building the
rotorblade without a decreased failure safety.
That means a saving in weight which will
cause a resource-efficient production and an

Winner: Saertex Gmbh & Co. KG
(Germany)
Partner(s): Institut für integrierte
Produktentwicklung - BIK (Germany)

economic operation of the later wind energy
turbine.
The process of a plane, horizontal lay-up
with the following near-net-shape transformation is a completely new approach for the
perform assembly in these dimensions.

No87 March 2014 /

jec composites magazine 31

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #87 - March 2014 Special JEC Europe

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #87 - March 2014 Special JEC Europe