NATURE OF DEFECT
The 2 x 4” elbows had suffered from internal erosion. This resulted in a through wall defect on the elbow on the left and assumed wall thinning on the elbow in the middle. The client requires a composite repair to seal the leak locations and to bring the lines back up to its full design specification.
SOLUTION
Metalyte Pipeworks produced a repair method using Herculyte epoxies to seal the defects with a minimum overwrap of 8 layers of Dragon-Q-UHT composite system.
REPAIR METHOD
Herculyte epoxies were fully mixed and inserted over the defect. The substrate was prepared (excluding the identified defect area) using an MBX machine to gain a surface profile to SSP.SP11. The flanges were profiled and a minimum of 500 microns of Dragon resin applied as a bonding coat to the entire repair area prior to application of the Dragon composite. The repair area was wrapped in 8 layers of Engineered Dragon-Q-UHT composite and cured until a minimum of 74.5 “Shore D” hardness was achieved.
