Supercali-thermoplastic

Strohm recently announced the largest contract in its history, to supply thermoplastic composite pipe (TCP) deepwater flowlines for supermajor TotalEnergies. The high-end flowlines will be used for the ultra deepwater and  harsh environments of the so-called pre-salt province, offshore  Brazil.

This contract marks a fundamental breakthrough of a novel technology in a very conservative marketplace, with many barriers to entry. A quick consideration of the corrosion handbook reveals that there are a wide variety of categories, including uniform corrosion, pitting corrosion, galvanic corrosion, stress corrosion cracking (SCC), micro-bacteria induced corrosion (MIC), crevice corrosion, intergranular corrosion, erosion corrosion and atmospheric corrosion. In pipelines, some of these forms of corrosion can be dealt with by applying a ‘corrosion allowance’, typically some 3 mm of additional steel thickness, which ensures that product lifetimes are met if the corrosion mechanism remains as predicted during the design phase. Some forms however, such as MIC, pitting corrosion and SCC, cannot be resolved by a conventional corrosion allowance. Throughout the years, there are thousands of corrosion authorities around the world who have researched this area and made it their area of expertise.

In this context, one might think that using materials that do not corrode, such as composite materials, would be a no-brainer. Surely, once proven, everybody around the world working on pipelines, flowlines, risers and jumpers would flock to use this non-corroding material. There would be one ‘breakthrough’, that of proving and achieving technology readiness, after which acceptance would be global instantly, given the challenges and leakages caused by corrosion, especially if there is a proven track record and an attractive business case.

Alas, there is no such thing as a breakthrough. When a novel technology disrupts existing entrenched interests and business models, renders existing knowledge redundant, and requires standards to be revised or new ones created, then formidable barriers to entry are created that continue to exist for a long time. At Strohm, what does this mean for us as a disruptor? It means that we cannot relax and sit back. There is no ‘Hoover Dam project’ that will flood the company with revenue. Once the technology is accepted, piloted and a track record begins to grow through working with the leaders in the field, a disruptor needs to push harder to create the acceleration that will truly make the technology broadly accepted and cements its position. In a conservative industry, this requires:

Knowledge sharing and teaching.

Aligning the proposition with the drivers of the end users.

Enabling the advisors and supply chain to support, shine, and take part in the success.

Here, we describe the above three elements and how Strohm implemented these to become successful in the market. As Strohm develops and manufactures TCP, we start with knowledge sharing.

Knowledge sharing and teaching

Carbon fibre-based composites do not suffer from fatigue. This means that we can apply as many load cycles as we want; the fatigue life simply is not a critical parameter in the design, and we only need to consider the static loads. As simple as this may sound, in our design and qualification approach we prove it every single time, and we need to convince our clients of what this simplicity means. While fatigue is not a consideration in most composite structures, other long-term loads such as creep and ageing, can be. These, together with the single and combined load cases, need to be fully understood and finite element analysis is a good tool to assess this. To build a proper FEA model however, one requires material data, both around strength (resistance) and stiffness – this is where things get trickier. Where steel has a pretty stable stiffness, the stiffness of a thermoplastic composite is influenced by temperature and by the fluids being transported. This is the key element in our knowledge sharing with engineering houses, installation contractors and end users alike; how to build a design and be confident that it will be able to support all single and combined load cases.

Where other flexible pipe manufacturers hold their knowledge close to their chest, we turn it around and we share as much as realistically possible. We share how we model the influence of temperature, and that of fluid, how we assess rapid gas decompression, and chemical resistance, how we consider solubility parameters in assessing the level of swelling of the material, and how we can translate this into a simple shift in temperature. To create and accelerate acceptance, you have to build trust by being transparent. At Strohm we share our knowledge and enable others to fully understand our product. In doing this, we provide support for our partners such as engineering houses to perform linear analysis using regularly available finite element analysis (FEA) tools. We provide models that allow them to do a thorough analysis. It is only if that is not providing an accurate result that we will consider non-linear analysis which we can do in house.

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