The cured-in-place-pipe technology came into being decades ago and the installation of the pipes were complete way back. The CIPP lining was a great advancement in the pipe rehabilitation domain. It soon replaced the traditional method of open-cut replacements for rehabilitating broken or cracked sanitary pipelines and pressure pipelines for gas, water and other process effluents.
But it is not always about the initial installation. Today, when you see it, the next step is all about expanding the information envelope on CIPP liner installations. Even with so much of a technology boom, you still cannot guarantee that there will be no loss of information. There is always a potential for data to be lost.
The main challenge that lies in front of the major of the pipeline companies today is to how best store all the critical information so that the pipeline engineers engaged in working on CIPP lined pipelines can access it whenever required.
When you think about this issue one of the potential solutions is storing the data within the liner itself so that it is available later for retrieval.
So how exactly can you put this solution in actual practicality is the question that will be running in our minds? Here we have outlined the specific process that goes into storing and retrieving data on a CIPP liner.
The first step involves implanting a set of microchips into the CIPP liner during the manufacturing process itself.
Before the liner is dispatched from the factory the manufacturer’s design identification reference is stored on each of the microchips. The identification reference number contains all the relevant data with regards to the process of manufacture, the date of manufacture, the material used, the thickness of the liner, the conformity details and all other important information.
If in case data needs to be retrieved at any point of time, the identification reference number that was programmed onto the chip can be back-referenced to the database of the original manufacturer.
At the point of installation, the contractors add further information relating to the contractor who installed the CIPP, the date and time of installation, the asset owner and the installation process operational data.
Remember that once the pipeline is installed, this data cannot be changed as it remains locked. It can only be accessed to read the data.
The value of the base information can be realized only at later stages of the pipeline life as it gives you all the information regarding the initial installation. This helps the asset owner to measure the deterioration in the installation procedure.
The benefits of having such a system is that the contractors cannot cheat by adding cheaper material and using improper installation methods as everything gets recorded and verified. Another benefit is that even when there is a change of ownership, the base information remains undiluted and available at all times.
All this information is totally invaluable to all the engineers going to work on these pipelines any time in the future. It helps with all the analysis of the system and any planning for the future that is required.
