Factory Pipe Coating and Field Joint Repair

Laying pipes underneath a mass of water always comes with challenges, yet TDC International (TDC) has experience and expertise in working in difficult environments. The project, which was developed by Josef Pfaffinger GmbH, involved the factory coating of pipes and repairing field joints for an underground crossing of the Mulde River, in Germany. TDC coated 208 meters of pipe using DN 300 pau wrap® pipe coating, including 16 field joints.

At the start, TDC was only asked to coat the DN 300 pipes in their factory in Trollenhagen, Germany, with the standard pau wrap® TL. The client had chosen a different field joint system at the start. However due to complications, TDC was called back to help with the field joints, which resulted in the client choosing the field joints to be also coated by TDC.

The tough geological conditions, consisting of mostly sedimentary stones, had detrimental impact on the initial third-party field joint coating system, although it had minimal invasive impact on our factory GRP coating (only by a maximum of 1.0 mm). Due to the tough conditions, an extra 3mm of pau wrap® was added to the pipes resulting in a 7-8mm customized pau wrap® GRP coating throughout the 17 pipes and 16 field joints. With constant rain and the temperature being over 15 degrees, high humidity levels were an obstacle that our team mitigated without any issues by continuously measuring the operating conditions and adjusting the environmental procedures accordingly.

Update: April 2019