Wood lagging

Last updated
A pipeline protected by wood lagging. Pipe with Wood Lagging.jpg
A pipeline protected by wood lagging.

Wood lagging is a method of banding wooden slats around pipelines to protect against impact, abrasion, and corrosion. Wooden lagging acts as a sheath, protecting the pipeline from damage, [1] and is especially useful in rocky terrain; steep inclines; around rivers or swampy areas; and other rough terrain. [2] Boiler lagging is akin to pipe lagging, but is used to protect steam boilers.

Contents

Wood lagging has been used on notable pipelines such as The Trans-Mountain Pipeline, which spans the Canadian Rockies, since 1953, and The Kinder Morgan TMX Anchor Loop. The latter, constructed in 2007, used wood lagging in the environmentally-sensitive terrain and river crossings of Alberta's Jasper National Park. [3]

Overview

Construction process

Wood lagging is one of several solutions employed by pipeline engineers to provide mechanical protection for underground pipelines. Others include concrete coating, rockshield, high-density polyethylene, imported sand padding, and padding machines. [2]

Wood lagging involves wiring a series of wooden slats together to create a 'blanket'. This blanket of wooden slats is then dropped over and wrapped around the outside of a pipeline, with or without coating, [4] and secured with steel or plastic banding. [5]

Once wood lagging is installed, the pipeline can be buried and backfilled. (Wood lagging is installed as part of the “padding and backfill” stage of construction.) [6] [7]

For pipelines that encounter saturated soils or water, wood lagging is often installed in between bolt-on concrete weights, acting as a spacer to keep the weights in place as well as to provide mechanical protection to the pipe. River weights are generally used at river and creek crossings to counteract the buoyancy of pipelines in stream, high water table situations, or in swampy areas. [8]

Characteristics

Wood lagging is especially useful to protect pipelines in rocky terrain; steep inclines; around rivers or swampy areas; and in areas with poor natural availability of padding, such as sand or gravel. [2]

Wood lagging is light, flexible, and easy to install at construction sites. As a method for protecting pipelines, wood lagging offers high-impact resistance at a considerably reduced cost compared to other types of pipeline protection, such as concrete coating. [2]

Materials for wood lagging can often be sourced regionally near pipeline construction sites, reducing transportation time and costs. Wood used in wood lagging is a renewable resource that creates a carbon sequestration effect after pipeline burial, providing minimal environmental impact compared to other types of pipeline protection. [2]

Historic and modern uses

The longevity of wood lagging that has been installed underground is unknown. However, intact wood lagging has been found still performing its function more than 50 years after installation:

GWR Firefly replica at Didcot Railway Centre. The wooden slats around boiler are an example of boiler lagging GWR Firefly.jpg
GWR Firefly replica at Didcot Railway Centre. The wooden slats around boiler are an example of boiler lagging

Modern examples of wood lagging used to protect oil and natural gas pipelines include:

A different, but related, use of wooden slats was for lagging steam boilers, for example in trains.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pipeline</span> Pumping fluids or gas through pipes

A pipeline is a system of pipes for long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas, typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than 2,175,000 miles (3,500,000 km) of pipeline in 120 countries around the world. The United States had 65%, Russia had 8%, and Canada had 3%, thus 76% of all pipeline were in these three countries. The main attribute to pollution from pipelines is caused by corrosion and leakage

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cathodic protection</span> Corrosion prevention technique

Cathodic protection is a technique used to control the corrosion of a metal surface by making it the cathode of an electrochemical cell. A simple method of protection connects the metal to be protected to a more easily corroded "sacrificial metal" to act as the anode. The sacrificial metal then corrodes instead of the protected metal. For structures such as long pipelines, where passive galvanic cathodic protection is not adequate, an external DC electrical power source is used to provide sufficient current.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piping</span> System of pipes used to transport fluids

Within industry, piping is a system of pipes used to convey fluids from one location to another. The engineering discipline of piping design studies the efficient transport of fluid.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (NYSE: KMI) (KMEP) is a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan, Inc. The company, which is classified as an oil and gas master limited partnership (MLP), owns or operates petroleum product, natural gas, and carbon dioxide pipelines, related storage facilities, terminals, power plants and retail natural gas in the United States and Canada.

The Calnev Pipeline is a 550-mile (890 km) long buried refined oil products pipeline in the United States, owned by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners. The pipeline consists of two parallel lines, the larger, has a diameter of 14 inches (360 mm) and the smaller one has a diameter of 8 inches (200 mm). The lines carry gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel from Los Angeles, California refineries as far as Nellis Air Force Base south of North Las Vegas, Nevada. It carries approximately 128,000 barrels per day (20,400 m3/d). Jet fuel from the pipeline is also delivered to the Harry Reid International Airport tank farm in Paradise. Additional terminal facilities are located in Barstow, California.

Fusion bonded epoxy coating, also known as fusion-bond epoxy powder coating and commonly referred to as FBE coating, is an epoxy-based powder coating that is widely used to protect steel pipe used in pipeline construction from corrosion. It is also commonly used to protect reinforcing bars and on a wide variety of piping connections, valves etc. FBE coatings are thermoset polymer coatings. They come under the category of protective coatings in paints and coating nomenclature. The name fusion-bond epoxy is due to resigning cross-link and the application method, which is different from a conventional paint. In 2020 the market size was quoted at 12 billion dollars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tennessee Gas Pipeline</span> Set of natural gas pipelines in the United States

Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGPL) is a set of natural gas pipelines that run from the Texas and Louisiana coast through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to deliver natural gas in West Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and New England. The 11,900-mile (19,200 km) long system is operated by the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan. It is one of the largest pipeline systems in the United States. Its FERC code is 9. TGP's PHMSA pipeline operator i.d. is 19160.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kinder Morgan</span> Energy Transportation Company

Kinder Morgan, Inc. is one of the largest energy infrastructure companies in North America. The company specializes in owning and controlling oil and gas pipelines and terminals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wah Seong Corporation</span> Oil company

Wah Seong Corporation Berhad is a public listed company on the Main Board of the Bursa Malaysia. It was founded in 1994, and has a market capitalization of about US$300 million as of January 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heat-shrinkable sleeve</span>

Heat-shrinkable sleeve is a corrosion protective coating for pipelines in the form of a wraparound or tubular sleeve that is field-applied.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Power of Siberia</span> Natural gas pipeline from Siberia to China

Power of Siberia is a Gazprom-operated pipeline in Eastern Siberia that transports natural gas from Yakutia to Primorsky Krai and China. It is a part of the eastern gas route from Siberia to China. The proposed western gas route to China is known as Power of Siberia 2.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ductile iron pipe</span> Pipe made of ductile cast iron

Ductile iron pipe is pipe made of ductile cast iron commonly used for potable water transmission and distribution. This type of pipe is a direct development of earlier cast iron pipe, which it has superseded.

Subfluvial tunnel ESPO and Lena River is a bridge that carries the Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean oil pipeline across the Lena River. The Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean oil pipeline is a 1,755 kilometres (1,091 mi) long oil pipeline. It is between the confluence with the Olyokma River and Soljanka village.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kalamazoo River oil spill</span> 2010 oil spill in Calhoun County, Michigan, US

The Kalamazoo River oil spill occurred in July 2010 when a pipeline operated by Enbridge burst and flowed into Talmadge Creek, a tributary of the Kalamazoo River near Marshall, Michigan. A 6-foot (1.8 m) break in the pipeline resulted in one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history. The pipeline carries diluted bitumen (dilbit), a heavy crude oil from Canada's Athabasca oil sands to the United States. Cleanup took five years. Following the spill, the volatile hydrocarbon diluents evaporated, leaving the heavier bitumen to sink in the water column. Thirty-five miles (56 km) of the Kalamazoo River were closed for clean-up until June 2012, when portions of the river were re-opened. On March 14, 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ordered Enbridge to return to dredge portions of the river to remove submerged oil and oil-contaminated sediment.

A volatile corrosion inhibitor (VCI) is a material that protects metals from corrosion. Corrosion inhibitors are chemical compounds that can decrease the corrosion rate of a material, typically a metal or an alloy. NACE International Standard TM0208 defines volatile corrosion inhibitor (VCI) as a chemical substance that acts to reduce corrosion by a combination of volatilization from a VCI material, vapor transport in the atmosphere of an enclosed environment, and condensation onto surface in the space, including absorption, dissolution, and hydrophobic effects on metal surfaces, where the rate of corrosion of metal surfaces is thereby inhibited. They also called vapor-phase inhibitors, vapor-phase corrosion inhibitors, and vapor-transported corrosion inhibitors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Submarine pipeline</span> Pipeline that is laid on the seabed or below it inside a trench

A submarine pipeline is a pipeline that is laid on the seabed or below it inside a trench. In some cases, the pipeline is mostly on-land but in places it crosses water expanses, such as small seas, straits and rivers. Submarine pipelines are used primarily to carry oil or gas, but transportation of water is also important. A distinction is sometimes made between a flowline and a pipeline. The former is an intrafield pipeline, in the sense that it is used to connect subsea wellheads, manifolds and the platform within a particular development field. The latter, sometimes referred to as an export pipeline, is used to bring the resource to shore. Sizeable pipeline construction projects need to take into account many factors, such as the offshore ecology, geohazards and environmental loading – they are often undertaken by multidisciplinary, international teams.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morgan Whyalla pipeline</span> 1940 engineering project

The Morgan – Whyalla pipeline was an engineering project undertaken by the South Australian Government in 1940 to bring water from Morgan on the River Murray to the industrial city of Whyalla. A second pipeline, by a divergent route, was laid in the 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trans Mountain pipeline</span> Oil pipeline in southwestern Canada

The Trans Mountain Pipeline System, or simply the Trans Mountain Pipeline(TMPL), is a multiple product pipeline system that carries crude and refined products from Edmonton, Alberta, to the coast of British Columbia, Canada.

References

  1. "Settlement of Backfill, excerpt". National Energy Board. Archived from the original on 2013-07-01. Retrieved 2012-04-06.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Mohitpour, Mo (2003). Pipeline Design and Construction: A Practical Approach. ASME Press. ISBN   978-0791802021.
  3. 1 2 Parks, Stephanie (August 1, 2010). "Kinder Morgan preserves nature's bounty with a minimalist approach to a major build project". Alberta Venture. Retrieved 2012-04-06.
  4. "HydroCarbon Pipeline" (PDF). South Dakota Public Utilities Commission. 2007. p. 23. Retrieved 2012-04-06.
  5. Adelard Bouchard, Paul (December 2, 2010). "Patent for a mass-production Wood Lagging machine" . Retrieved 2012-04-06.
  6. "Pipeline Plans" (PDF). Enbridge Energy. August 29, 2011. Retrieved 2012-04-06.
  7. "Joint Protection" (PDF). Page 1: Joint Protection. Shaw Pipe Protection. Retrieved 2012-04-06.
  8. "Pacific Trail Pipelines: Item VII: Pipe Protection (wood lagging)" (PDF). Kitimat - Summit Lake Looping Project. Retrieved 2012-04-06.
  9. "Oil Across The Rockies (film)". Archival Footage. 1953. Retrieved 2012-04-06.
  10. Ross, Elsie (October 17, 2008). "TMX Pipeline Construction Successfully Navigates Difficult Park Terrain". New Technology Magazine. Retrieved 2012-04-06.
  11. "Sample Crossing Agreement: Item 5 (g) Page 4" (PDF). Sun Canadian. April 5, 2011. Retrieved 2012-04-06.