Fibrecoat is a glass fibre reinforced vinyl ester glass-flake coating. Developed by Corrocoat, for use as a high-performance lining, Fibrecoat rehabilitates severely corrosion damaged pipes, and adds exceptional mechanical strength. The coating may be applied in a single layer or multiple layers at up to 3000 microns per coat. This hold-up capability makes the coating excellent at filling through-wall defects and bridging cracks, which ultimately leads to creating a composite pipe within a pipe.
Fibrecoat is highly abrasion resistant and suitable for application in aggressive service conditions, making it ideally suited to sewage applications. The coating system also has high temperature resistance. It is applied using the our specially designed airless spray equipment, the Agmec Pipe Sprayer, and we recently used the pipe spraying equipment to demonstrate the application of Fibrecoat to a 6” nominal bore pipe, which was 5.3 metres in length.
The pipe sprayer is used to coat pipe internals with suitable coatings. The coatings are atomised by centrifugal force that is produced by the specially designed spray cup. An oscillating spray pattern is produced through the spray cup being angled to the rotating head, so as the head turns, a to-and-fro movement is generated, much as would occur with a hand application.
The Agmec Pipe Sprayer allows for long pipe runs of up to 100m in length, and from 150mm to 1.2m in diameter to be coated in one pass. Savings are significant and in many cases pipework can be blasted and coated in-situ, without the need for expensive excavation and disassembly.
We prepared a sample 6” nominal bore pipe, which had suffered from corrosion damage, for the demonstration. The pipe had a set of holes drilled in from 6mm to 25mm, which were positioned at 12 o’clock and 3 o’clock. These were in place to demonstrate the coatings hole bridging properties, after applying a single coat and multiple coats.
For this application, the pipe was abrasive blasted. As Fibrecoat can be used to provide a composite pipe within a pipe, providing high hoop strength, a low-level surface preparation for application is possible in some environments.
An airless spray pump was connected to the pipe sprayer, with appropriate hoses for the diameter and length of the pipe. Following cleaning and flushing, the pump was then primed with a small amount of a lower viscosity, chemically compatible Corrocoat coating to aid the initial pumping of Fibrecoat.
The sprayer was deployed to the end of the pipe by pulling through with a previously fed small line. It was stopped at the end of the pipe with the sprayer head protruding.
The coating was atomised by centrifugal force that is produced by the specially designed spray cup. A fan angle spray pattern was produced through the spray cup being angled to the rotating head.
The coating covers hole sizes up to 12mm in a single coat and up to 25mm in two coats, depending on the DFT achieved.
Following cure, further coats can be applied to the desired thickness and to complete the bridging or filling of defects. Click here to see the full demonstration.
Corrocoat have been successfully applying coatings to pipes for decades. The development of Fibrecoat adds another dimension to our already vast range of pipe protecting capabilities.
For more information on Fibrecoat and/or the Agmec Pipe Spraying equipment, contact a member of the team here.
