Case Study
Lined Pipe for Ash handlinG at a power station
Lined Pipe for Ash Handling
A power station in Missouri had a problem: its current ash handling system had become a maintenance headache. The system — common in most power plants and consisting of ceramic-lined pipe and fittings that moved a highly abrasive ash and water slurry — was holding up well except at changes in direction, where blockages were common.
Workers would frequently bang on the pipes to clear those blockages, causing the brittle ceramic lining to fracture and break down quickly. The broken lining and damaged pipes led to increased outages, costing the plant time and money.
Missouri, US
Location
Power Generation
Market Type
Polyurethane-Lined Pipe
Products Used
The Solution
An Opportunity for Partnership
Enerpipe and Iracore saw the project as an opportunity to showcase both companies’ unique capabilities and offer the power station a solution new to their industry that had proven successful in others.
Enerpipe, a pipe fabricator already trusted by the owner and operator of the Missouri power facility, approached leadership and offered to install test spools of elbows and straight-run sections that made use of Iracore’s specialty product — polyurethane-lined pipe designed to resist corrosion and stand up to the beating these pipes took regularly.
The test would prove the value of polyurethane-lined pipe by reducing the overall cost of operation in the form of lower maintenance costs compared to the previous ceramic-lined system.
Built for the Long-Term Challenge
Enerpipe installed the test run during a routine outage in 2013. And because the ash handling usually requires high maintenance and inspection, the durability of Iracore’s polyurethane lining was observed closely.
After seven years of continuous use, there was little-to-no visible erosion-related wear. No system-related outages were required due to lining breakdown — a huge improvement over the previous ceramic lining. In fact, the routine beating of the pipes to clear ash blockages had no effect on the polyurethane-lined pipe whatsoever.
