Centrifugally Cast Concrete Liners Among Company’s Many Pipe Rehab Solutions

Canada’s PipeFlo Contracting prides itself on having a diverse toolbox for addressing customers’ infrastructure rehab needs

Centrifugally Cast Concrete Liners Among Company’s Many Pipe Rehab Solutions

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PipeFlo Contracting has built a successful business by adopting many different kinds of trenchless pipe rehabilitation technologies, creating a one-stop shop for its commercial, industrial and municipal clients. A good example is centrifugally cast concrete pipe technology, primarily aimed at rehabbing deteriorating large-diameter, corrugated-steel culvert pipes.

About five years ago, the company invested in a CentriPipe CCCP system made by AP/M Permaform. It creates a structurally sound, corrosion-resistant concrete pipe inside the failing pipe without any excavation or a significant reduction in pipe capacity, says Bruce Noble, co-owner of the company, based in Hamilton, Ontario.

“We use it mostly to repair under-highway culverts,” Noble says, noting that either clients or engineers specify the use of CCCP. “If there’s any question about structural integrity (of a failing pipeline), we work with an engineer to determine the best (rehab) method. We’re not engineers, so we want to be sure we use the right technology and make sure the job is done right.”

The CentriPipe system is suitable for pipes ranging from 30 to 120 inches in diameter. It can be used on elliptical or even bent or curved pipes. It’s also possible to use the technology on square box culverts or culverts made of bricks and other materials. Using the system requires a six-person crew, Noble says.

The thickness of the liner — created with AP/M Permaform’s PL-8000, a Portland-cement product mixed with polymer fibers for added strength — depends on things such as the size and shape of the pipeline, how deep it’s buried, the hydraulic pressure under which it operate and the surrounding soil type/condition.

“There are a lot of factors in play,” Noble says.

After the pipeline is thoroughly cleaned, crews mix the PL-8000 concrete in a hopper. From there, it’s pumped to the CentriPipe system’s high-pressure, pneumatically driven spinning head, which uniformly applies the concrete. PipeFlo uses concrete pumps made by Putzmeister or Allentown.

The spinner head is inserted into the far end of the pipe, then slowly drawn back out by a winch at a precisely calculated pace. This ensures the concrete gets applied at the correct thickness. It’s possible to line runs of pipe as long as several hundred feet, and the application can stop and restart without leaving gaps. The final product is a seamless and fully structural concrete liner. 

“If we’re doing, say, a 100-foot-long section of a 48-inch-diameter pipe, the concrete will be dry to the touch by the time the spinner head leaves the pipe,” Noble says. “It’s rapid-set concrete that fully cures in eight or nine hours, depending on the pipe diameter and the thickness of the concrete.”

Read more about PipeFlo Contracting in the September 2019 issue of Cleaner magazine.



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