Ceramic-Lined Pipe Clearly Superior
A recent head-to-head showdown clearly indicated that a ceramic-lined pipe will far outlast a double-thickness carbon-steel pipe.
A pipe spool located downstream of a control valve typically lasted approximately 2 months before being completely worn through, and causing the plant to temporarily shut-down that part of their process.
A solution to extend the life of this pipe section was to weld a sleeve inside the pipe spool – thus increasing the total wall thickness to 0.4″. This extended the life of the pipe section by another 4 months.
As part of the Ceresist Double Longevity Challenge, a standard alumina pipe spool was supplied to the customer on a trial basis. The stipulation being that should the ceramic-lined pipe fail within twice the amount of time of a standard component (four months in this case) the customer owes nothing.
The ceramic-lined pipe was left in service for six months, after which it was removed for inspection. The ceramic-lined pipe section showed negligible wear, and indicated that it would most probably outlast the 0.4″ wall thickness carbon steel pipe by at least four times.