Advancements in Large Diameter HDPE Pipe | ISCO

Will Vodak 

Valor Pipe Product Page

Okay, everybody, welcome back to another version of ISCO insights. My name is Will Vodak. Coming live to you from Colorado Springs here at our good friends that global underground. Believe it or not, I’m actually on the road. They let me out of the office, which is kind of scary for once. And we’re going to do this the old school way, Garry, I believe you’re in studio. Can you hear me? All right?

Garry 

Well, coming in loud and clear from Colorado, man, good to see you.

Will Vodak 

Good to hear you too. So before we get into a quick set of bios, and introductions, let’s go ahead and start this off. For anybody who has not attended and insights or needs a quick refresher, all your video and audio is turned off to enhance the quality. So if you’re sitting at home in your pajamas, don’t worry about it. And for feedback, or troubleshooting, please use the chat box, we’ll do our best to help out with any technical issues or any zoom problems. And any feedback you have, from a technical standpoint, please use the chat box, I think the most important thing is, if you are looking to ask questions, we would love for this to be you know, a two way conversation or perhaps a couple of 100 person way conversation at this point. So please use the q&a tab. And we’ve got some panelists standing by to be able to answer any of those questions, or as many of those questions as they can coming in. So again, please use that q&a tab. There also be a couple polls during the journey. There. Let’s maybe try one of those polls out real quick to make sure we can all use those. And if you could pull up in our first poll question, which is when did you last spec HDPE on a project? Was it I don’t know? Jordan, not one of our panelists probably spec’d. Maybe just last week. You know, Garry has never written a specification in his life. So that would be never, but we just want to get to know the audience a little bit. And it looks like for the most part, we got about 41% saying in the last couple of months, and then 13% saying never SPEC’D HDPE not yet. Anyways, so we appreciate everybody coming on here. Let’s go ahead and dive into our panelists, or presenters. Garry, you want to maybe give an introduction and tell people why they should listen to you?

Garry 

Yeah, well, it’s good to be with you again, my name is Garry Bouvet. I’m with ISCO. I’ve been been with this NGO for coming up on my 26 years will, can you believe that? And been in the HCP HDP business for about 30 years in a variety of roles. So glad to be here to share some knowledge for the people today. It’s

Will Vodak 

kind of fun. We haven’t done this setup in a long time. Normally we’re in studio, this takes us back to the real dark days of early COVID. So this is this is kind of insights. Og version, right?

Garry 

Absolutely. Yeah. I’m not in my dining room like I was the first time we ever did this. Right.

Will Vodak 

Well, thanks so much for being here. Garry. We’re looking to lean on you heavily as always. And we’ve actually got our first international presenter from from Canada coming up here on the program, Mark McDonald with AECOM, up in Canada. Mark, welcome to the program, would you maybe give a brief bio and background in the industry?

Mark McDonald 

For sure. Mark McDonald, I am the manager of our major convenience and hydraulics group in Winnipeg, Manitoba, kind of in the middle of pretty much right in the middle of North America. I’ve been with a calm and legacy companies for going on 38 years now. So they’ve been around for a while. I’m also the technical Practice Lead for water pipelines in Canada, which was part of our larger technical collaboration group, internationally within a column. The project that I’m we’ll be chatting about a little bit today is in Victoria BC, so on Vancouver Island and BC there was the McLaughlin point wastewater treatment plant and the HDPE component of that was the the outfall from the treatment plant into the ocean. So prior to this plant being constructed in went in service in , the City of Victoria was dumping their sewage pretty much right into the ocean and the treatment plant and outfall. Solve that problem the outfall itself is about meters long, so about feet of solid wall HDPE 20 to 50 millimeter diameter, so about seven eight inches. And that was installed in the summer of . And to my knowledge is still on the bottom of the ocean. So we’re happy.

Will Vodak 

That’s great to hear. And you’ve got a pretty good background there. I imagine that’s that’s an image from from the site there. Is that just office view? Well Mark, thanks for being here with us and Jordan. I want to give you an opportunity to come on as well. Jordan with bone Collins, want to maybe give a quick background and experience in the industry.

Jordan 

Yeah, as you mentioned I work with bone Collins and Associates. We’re a water resource engineering firm, and in Utah that has about 100 employees. And we specialize in water and wastewater planning, design, and construction. I have 16 years experience in planning that design and construction of over 75 miles of large diameter transmission pipelines up to 132 inch diameter, including a recent project of three miles of millimeter, which is 78 inch solid wall HDPE pipe for the steineke or service canal enclosure project that’s currently under construction under construction in Vernal, Utah.

Will Vodak 

Fantastic, Jordan, I really appreciate you being here. That’s been a fun project to see the pictures of and be somewhat involved with, I was lucky enough to visit the site. So guys, I say we go ahead and get started. We’re here today to talk about all things XXL. HDPE, we want to see, you know, there’s been a lot of technical advances that allow HDPE same features and benefits into a much larger process and end result. So Garry, why don’t we maybe start with some definitions here. I think the audience might have heard of some types of large diameter HDPE. But let’s go ahead and discuss and actually for anybody who wants to know, that’s actually Jeremy Becker, pointing at the sky there who’s in studio with us right now. Thanks, JB. So Garry HDPE, in the large diameter has been used pretty frequently throughout the world, also North America, up to about inch. So what’s what’s new today? Well,

Garry 

well, well, you’re right. HDPE has been around Europe’s been using large diameter pipe for a couple of decades now. But you know, here domestically in North America, we’ve had limitations on the manufacturing capacity, right? 63 inch being the largest solid wall pipe that was being produced here in North America. Well, that all changed a few years ago, when OSI he came over opened up a plant in a facility down in South Carolina. And that now has given us the opportunity to provide a much larger diameter HDPE pipe so people can get the benefits of ATP that we’ve all been accustomed to, in these much larger diameters.

Will Vodak 

What were some of the limiting factors there, Garry, I think it was wall thickness, right? That were we really couldn’t get above a certain wall thickness or thickness and slump and slow and sag with with a stride?

Garry 

You’re exactly right. Well, when you when you think about the construction, the the production of HDPE pipe, you know, running through an extruder and a die head, you know, you’re talking about molten material that’s being passed through and needs to cool down and solidify before. Before, you know, it actually becomes pipe. And as those walls, wall thicknesses and pipe diameters get bigger and bigger. The traditional method of extruding, you’re constantly had, where you’re getting a four inch wall thickness at the bottom and a two inch wall thickness at the top. It’s not very uniform pipe when you’re trying to put that together. So that was some of the limiting was just really some of the manufacturing equipment. Now they’re, you know, manufacturing, they’re winding this on on drums and different things that allow us to basically make any thickness that we need for a particular project.

Will Vodak 

Yeah, fantastic. And I think we’re really excited to talk about today, the future, I think we have an idea of where large diameter fits in. But I think the fact is still pretty new. So you know, at least in pressurized systems in North America, very large XXL above 63 inch has a great future ahead of them. So let’s, let’s talk maybe a little bit about this. There are two types of of large diameter HDPE. Garry, what are we focusing on today?

Garry 

Well, you’re right. Well, and and on some people, you know, think 18 inch pipe is large diameter if they’ve only been doing eight inch and down, but, you know, and what we’re considering what we’re dealing with, we’re talking about that 63 inch and and above, right, that’s the that’s kind of the range that that we’re focused on. And, you know, we’re talking links that you can get in this pipe, you know, up to 600 meter links. There’s also solid, solid wall pipe, which is where primarily we’re focusing on there’s also a whole nother product line with called profile pipe where sill HDPE pipe, but instead of that solid wall that we have, it’s more of a profile pipe. And we see that in a lot of particular applications. It’s not where we’re, you know, dealing with and what we’re focusing on today. We’ll I will actually probably have another insights in the near future on profile wall pipe specifically. And

Will Vodak 

there’s some different joining methods of these. But the pipe we’re focusing on today is solid wall fusible. It’s essentially just, you know, a scaled up version of the stuff that I think most people are used to at this point with, with the smaller and mid range HDPE. Is that correct? Absolutely. You

Garry 

got it. Okay.

Will Vodak  

Garry, let’s, let’s keep moving on here a little bit. You know, what are some of the important kind of big picture level thinking here of why large diameter HDPE and XXL HDPE is being considered on a number of different projects throughout the United States? Well,

Garry 

it really goes back to, you know, the same features and benefits that we talked about with standard or our traditional HDPE. Pipe. You’re talking, you know, cost, effectiveness, durability, the leak free joint, I think is a real big one, right? When you got into those much larger diameters, really, people were limited in the choices, right, they were looking at, you know, fiberglass pipe, or, you know, even steel pipe, now, we can bring the benefits that everybody’s realized into smaller diameters HDPE into this much larger diameter arena that we never really played in before. And you can see them flexibility, lightweight, light and lighter weight, I say, say lightweight, it’s still very heavy, but in comparison to some of those other materials, and really, the longevity, the life expectancy of this pipe. And then these applications, you heard Jordan mentioned, you know, his project being buried, and then you’ve got Mars project up there in Canada, you know, as an actual sink and float that we’ll talk more about. So totally different elements, polyethylene pipe, who’s out well in both of those. So

Will Vodak 

I want to bring in Jordan, if I may, Jordan, do you remember early on I mean, from the very first time you thought about using HDPE, what were some of the important selling features, the features and benefits to you why HDPE was considered.

Jordan 

So we did a cost material analysis during the design phase of the steineke, or service canal project, where we looked at welded steel pipe, fiberglass pipe and HDPE pipe. We eliminated welded steel pipe due to cost pretty pretty early on in the process. And then we actually did a full design for fiberglass pipe, as well as solid wall HDPE pipe. And we put we put both of those two pipe materials out to bid and we let the contractors bid and in between the contractor pricing and the cost of the pipe material itself. We let them make the decision and ended up the solid wall HDPE pipe coming from, you know, South Carolina clear across, you know, shipped one stick at a time clear across to Utah, on the other side of the country was was more cost effective than then the fiberglass pipe that we looked at. Really

Will Vodak 

good to know I appreciate the information Mark, do you have anything to add on why HDPE was was conceived and considered very early on.

Mark McDonald 

Interestingly enough, our project is actually was a design build project. We’re a common grant construction in Canada. We’re partners in the project. And when we first got the project in , we were actually contemplating using concrete coated steel as the outfall. And as luck would have it or fortune would have it I guess, the project got shelved for about four years due to some regulatory issues. And it was brought back on stream in about If I recall correctly, and by that time ag ru had moved their one of their extruders into South Carolina and then fell polyethylene became more attractive. So when we looked at it with steel, initially a good chunk of it until we got to a sufficient depth to get around current wave concerns. We had a concrete coated pipe and and beyond that it was just a dielectric coating epoxy coating on the rest of the pipeline. And we had to meet a design life of 75 to 100 years. So we also had on that as I forget what the number was but many s of there many 10s of s of pounds of aluminum anodes that had to go on as well. So fortunately, over that delay, brought polyethylene on larger sizes on stream. And it was a pretty easy decision to switch from steel to polyethylene to mainly get around to corrosion here shoes and constructability issues, being able to fuse it float and sink operation which was not available with feel. So as sort of liquid habit to be became our became available for us. So, yeah,

Will Vodak 

and we’re awfully happy that it did. So we’re going to talk about a little bit later on as well. So let’s, let’s keep going I appreciate at least the early feedback on that. So Garry, let’s talk maybe about maybe some of the considerations that if, if I’m an audience member, and I’m thinking to myself, right, I might have an HDPE project, or I have a large diameter project coming up, you know, what are some things that I need to know about? large diameter HDPE, that might be a little different here. I think the first and foremost is maybe we should talk about some logistics and transportation. And as you can see, here, by the, by the pictures, you know, this isn’t as as simple as stacking a bunch of four inch pipe on top of one another, and, and getting a shipped out the door from any location, can you talk a little bit more about some of the not hurdles, but the challenges and considerations that you need to take to to prevent any sort of damage that pipe during shipment?

Garry 

Right. I mean, you know, both Marv and Jordan reference, you know, the shipping that pipe all the way across, you know, cross country, from South Carolina, all the way out to their their job sites. And, you know, that’s not a that’s a formidable task, when you’re looking at trucking and how you protect that pipe and, you know, potential cribbing, and how much you’re going to be able to get, and in both those instances, I believe it was one stick of pipe on on a truck. I mean, if we looked at any jobs, and these jobs have been done all over the world with large diameter pipe, you can see on that photo on the right, this pipe can be, you know, can be shipped and pulled, you know, by tug across the ocean. And we’ve seen that, and we’ve seen instances where, you know, some of those streams got broken off in a storm and, you know, big pipe end up washing up on somebody’s beach, and nobody knew what the heck it was. Those are all things that you had to encounter. And now at least having the ability to track it is something that makes that a little more farmable to deal with than what it used to be, but still something that you have to contend with.

Will Vodak 

Jordan, do you want to maybe talk a little bit about and I’m gonna pull up in this photo here, that, you know, the internal bracing and the supports that were required on on the pipeline that you shipped out to Stein occur? Yeah.

Jordan 

So that was one of the concerns, you know, this, this being the first project over 65 inch diameter in the United States, at least to this length that we’re talking about, everyone was kind of worried about the pipe keeping its ovality. And so bracing was was put in on the on the ends of the pipe. And then when the pipes unloaded, they rotated 90 degrees and, and construct wooden cribbing to let it sit around the haunches of the pipe so that it stays oval in the field. So, you know, on a, I can’t say this is typical, but first, first thinner walled pipe in the 54 inch, even 63. I’ve seen, when you unload some of this stuff, it, it tends to lose some of its ovality and goes egg shape a little bit, that was a concern that we had on this project. But when this pipe was unloaded, our guy out there in the field, would check it periodically, it was sitting, you know, in the staging areas for up to two months, and that the 78 inch pipe kits kept its own wholeness within a half inch diameter in any direction. And so I was impressed with with the manufacturing process from Agra America of how how well the pipe kept its own illness. This was this happened to be Dr. 26 that we’re talking about in the in the 78 inch. And so yeah, it was it was quite impressive and it’s overall it’s it’s kept its own wellness as it’s been installed and compacted in the ground as well.

Will Vodak 

I’ve heard really good things Jordan about you know, actually yesterday, we had it was funny, we had a we had a 32 inch der nine cross section for a tensile test. And then we had actually a a tensile test from your 78 inch project as an example. And just seeing the wall thicknesses. I mean, they were very similar but yours was you know, twice the the the outside diameter with being Dr. 26. So it’s really good to know that even a thinner wall like that can withstand some of the elements during shipment, you know, the sun, the same, you know, types of considerations we have to have with smaller diameter HDPE so really good to hear.

Garry 

Yeah, well that really comes into play when you try Trying to get that pipe into a fusion machine the things that Jordan referenced, right and trying to get that in the jaws and get the jaws closed around that pipe to take that, you know, little bit of overlaying out, it can handle that, if it’s too much that can add some complexity to the project. Mark, did

Will Vodak 

you ever investigate looking at shipping this via the ocean was that was that ever considered just out of curiosity?

Mark McDonald 

It was. And this was a new school decision, actually, could they were the pipe supplier, they, they actually did look at the options of, of floating to the site, but the options were Panama Canal, or going all the way around South Africa, or South America sorry. And, and the cost of going through the Panama Canal just was in my understanding, anyway, was in excess of what would have cost to move the pipe terrestrially to to Vancouver Island, which is, you know, both getting it, you know, to city of Vancouver and then getting it across the ferry to the island, which was a, you know, another logistics thing. And another point that was brought up by our marine contractor to was, if they didn’t, they needed a fusion machine on titanium way to do specials. And if they ever had a problem, something happened during manufacture, that they wanted to have a fusion machine on site anyway, just in the event that, you know, if they did bring it by marine that they you know, there is a potential that something gets damaged, and we’ll have to refuse it. And so just the logistics just worked out the terrestrial trucking was a bit more advantageous in this case.

Will Vodak 

You know, Garry’s got spring break down in Panama every year. That’s where he goes down to, you know, relax. So next time you need some help getting through the canal. I’m sure Garry, can.

Garry 

We did have a good question. Those guys down there. Yeah,

Will Vodak 

I’m sure I’m sure you are hearing. We did have a question come in about the UV resistance. Now, Jordan, I’ve seen some photos of the steineker or pipe at one point, it was stacked in a wide open storage facility. Garry, this is still the same black HDPE with carbon black that allows for unlimited storage capacity.

Garry 

Absolutely, yeah. No, no issue with pipe degradation with UV. That pipe can sit out there indefinitely, without any risk of damage to it whatsoever. Right.

Will Vodak 

Keep the questions coming, everyone, we really appreciate it. I suspec’d we’re going to spend a little bit of time here. So Garry, there are some installation comments that I think we need to discuss here. This is maybe, you know, not as simple as installing a four six inch or 12 inch polyethylene system. This there are some more considerations to take here. Garry, what are some things that come to mind for you right away? Well,

Garry 

I mean, it really depends on the job scenario, right, we’ve got two guest panelists that have totally different situations, you know, one was a float and sink into the ocean. And the other one was a was a, you know, excavate and bury situation with their pipe. So you know, totally different issues that they have to deal with the float and sink, you’re looking at, you know, concrete weights, and you know, how you’re going to, you know, what the size those need to be how you get that all to sink, you know, at the proper pace, and, you know, direction, and then the Oh, the excavation, and moving that pipe around, you’re looking at, you know, obviously multiple pieces of equipment that are needed to, to maneuver that pipe. Still, the great thing about this, the pipe can be joined above ground, right, you’re, you’re fusing it outside of a trench on the march job in the ocean, you’re, you’re fusing that pipe on a barge and stringing it out into the water. So you have that ability, much easier to do that type of work than what you may encounter with the fiberglass or the steel pipe that either one of those projects were also being considered on. So, again, just certain, you know, elements that have to be accounted for. And I’m sure our guests can have even more enlightenment on what they what they had to deal with.

Will Vodak 

Yeah, I’d like to start Jordan, when I was out on site, I know that proper compaction was really important to the crew. Do you want to maybe explain some of the installation challenges that you faced and that were unique to using large diameter HDPE for your projects? Yeah,

Jordan 

our project first of all, one of the challenging things is it’s it was we had to construct it and stay within a 100 foot right of way and around and curving right away because the canal curves. It’s not a it’s not a straight canal installation and so So, we actually had 67 different 15 degree fittings that were required for this three mile long section. We had to have the the Talon machines on site and one one techno Dewey machine on site. So I guess the challenges were, you know, keeping keeping the pipe pipe within the existing canal prism, installation of those fittings, we actually the photo over so that’s a photo there. And as well as the other one on the left, there is the techno duty machine that was used to pop out and fuse on those 15 degree fittings, and then the, the lengths between the fittings needed to be precise, so that it stayed in the in the trench that was constructed by the contractor. In addition to those challenges, we had a the subsurface conditions were very challenging on this project, we had trenching, or sorry, collapsing trench walls, and had to install a bunch of stabilization rock that needed to go in before the pipe was placed in and so that it would, you know, have keep the integrity of of the pipe and and, you know, make it make it possible for compaction to be had there and keep the old illness and roundness during the installation.

Will Vodak 

It was it was really cool to see that that dance occur between you know, and by the way, I want to point out, I don’t think this picture does it justice doesn’t Jordan, I mean, this machine is enormous. It really it’s like a two story machine. This was really incredible to see. The general contractor, the ISCO fusion technicians all working in tandem to get these joints made up.

Garry 

Well, I see that stepladder. If you are on that it has to be a bigger one.

Will Vodak 

Yeah, you’re right about that. Garry, thanks for Thanks for always making me feel really good about myself in front of hundreds of people, I really appreciate it. More of you guys had a little bit of an easier time, I guess with using the buoyancy of water, but also that presented some some unique challenges for you in terms of keeping that float, you know, floating on top of the surface and then sinking it. Do you want to I know we’re gonna touch base on this in greater detail later. Do you want to maybe talk about some of the challenges that you faced?

Mark McDonald 

Yeah, I mean, there’s some some quite interesting challenges, I guess. So I mean, polyethylene by nature is a small amount lighter to water and your density is about specific gravity of both point nine, six will just a little bit later than water. So even when it’s folded floats, and more. So because it’s in sea water, so sea water is a bit more dense, so is even a bit more. So for our application. We’re also started in fairly shallow water. So it’s affected by ocean waves and ocean currents. So it had to be quite heavily weighted until we got to about a 20 meter depth. And so are we facing and the pipe when it was empty, full of air, it actually would support, quite frankly, support these weights. So just in the context of the size. So we went from weight spacings of about three to six meters, so 10 to 10 to 20 feet. And each weight was about 4.7 cubic meters. So they weren’t like little weights, there are 4.7 cubic meters open, you know, like five, six cubic meters or yards of concrete. And another interesting fact of the project is, we needed to store that entire length of meters of pipe somewhere until we we installed it. So we had to lay down issues that a contractor had actually used a site before in that news Bay, which is about halfway of Vancouver Island to assemble this and so once the whole string was assembled, the way to attach it was tested, they had to actually tow it 120 kilometers to Victoria to deploy it in its final position. So it was pretty interesting. Yeah,

Will Vodak 

some really unique things that you face. And we’re going to show some photos later on. They’re pretty cool. Garry, real quick. We got a couple of questions that I’d like to address here. While we’re kind of on topic. And maybe Jordan, I think the this conversation might have come up with you. Nikolai was asking earlier, shipping on rail cars instead of one stick at a time. Jordan, did you ever look into that topic yourself?

Jordan 

We did not. That was something you know, maybe Donnie could chime in on working with ag grew America. That’s not something we specifically looked at to see if there was a cost savings there. I know. I think I did some math and it was like $9,000 per per per truckload coming from South Carolina to Utah. But I did not look at that. Personally, I’m not sure if Andrew and ISCO looked at that, for shipping across to our project site.

Will Vodak 

Garry, can we can you read Donnie sign language? He’s gonna give you some sign signs in the back. You can you can translate for me?

Want more information on 18 Inch HDPE Pipe? Feel free to contact us.

Garry 

Well, I can. I mean, we’ve been doing this a long time, I’ve looked at rail for just even standard HDPE pipe bundles in the past as a better option. And, and, you know, many times it doesn’t end up being plus, you don’t have as good a control on scheduling, you know, sometimes that pipe will stop and it gets stuck in a in a rail yard or, you know, some spur somewhere. And then if it’s not a rail close enough to the job site, now you’re still having to schedule additional trucks and then offload it. And the cost typically, in at least in the jobs that I’ve been involved in, in the past hasn’t been, you know, been any savings, and actually been more costly to look at the rail option.

Will Vodak 

Garry, Aaron is asking about 54 inch Dr. 41. I think this brings up a good point. So really thin wall large diameter there, are there any fusion considerations to take with with maybe a size like that?

Garry 

I mean, first of all, being that thin the 41 is definitely a very, you know, much thinner wall material for that kind of weight. It can be fused. But your ovality, you’re definitely going to have to have that pipe. You know, crib much like what you saw in some of the pictures there with the ends of that pipe. It’s not very common when we see a Dr. 41. With that, any of that size of pipe.

Will Vodak 

And Garry, let’s talk real quickly, because our good friend, the anonymous attendee is currently asking what sizes are available? Actually, current Max sizes and current polyethylene raise temperature? I didn’t know if you had the answer to that.

Garry 

Oh, yeah, the pipe. There were limited more on the wall thickness with the PERT to about a two inch wall. We have the largest part that we’ve manufactured has been up was 48 inch. And we just recently did that. Dr. 21, I believe or 42. I’m sorry, . Thank you for inch, that’s the largest part. And again, it’s really about that Dr. Wall thickness because that resin extrudes a little bit differently than standard resin does. Right.

Will Vodak 

Well, guys, let’s let’s continue on here. It really please keep the questions coming. We really appreciate the engagement there. Garry, there’s probably some design considerations to consider when when using large diameter XXL HDPE. What are some of the ones that come to mind? In your, in your opinion?

Garry 

Yeah, we’ve touched on a few of them will the load requirements, right? What, you know, even what soil loads are going to be, you know, put on that particular pipe, you know, burial conditions, the pressure ratings, again, the ability to to kind of wind or wrap that pipe, in its production can make just really about any wall thickness that’s needed. But all those have to come into play when you’re deciding what, what size of pipe you’re looking at, particularly the der, and then it’s the performance in the flow, what’s what’s going through it? What’s your flow velocities, what, you know, all those things that we take into consideration for any pipe design, soil and groundwater pressure, you know, expansion and contraction, is it going to stay above ground? Is it going to be buried, you know, all those things that we take into with any pipe that we put in the ground? Jordan,

Will Vodak 

I’m curious to know, you said it was originally steel as basis of design, maybe share the one thing that you learned that you think is most important considering, you know, designing HDPE instead of steel, that might be a key difference that you encountered on this project? Yeah,

Jordan 

so our project has mildly corrosive soils out there, you know, corrosion protection system certainly could have could have fit that and everything would have been fine for that project. But I guess the owner was due to cost that they wanted to go to HDPE HDPE pipe for this project. And so, you know, are were relatively low pressure. If it was a much higher pressure project, you know, maybe steel would have made more sense, but it’s relatively low. pressure for this particular project and so HDPE made sense from that standpoint as well. Yeah,

Will Vodak 

I’ve heard corrosive soils quite a bit lately. Jordan, it’s interesting, you mentioned that more of anything sticking out to you from a design standpoint that you thought was fundamental to working with HDPE compared to other materials.

Mark McDonald 

Well, in our case, again, it was largely corrosion resistance was why we switched from steel to, to HDPE. And then ease of installation with the float in sync operation. Design wise Myra pipe was designed the action to design drivers installation, the installation conditions and stresses on their installation through that S curve, float and sink operation is actually the the the governing design factor, but we did look at it from the perspective also of a seismic of resistance, we’re HDP HDPE is a very good product from a seismic resistance standpoint, you know, HDPE can withstand safely, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5% of strain without much concern at all. So, and in our case, we actually do have Victoria is very earthquake, susceptible, both seismic settlements, and we actually crossed the fault. So, we did consider all those things in with HDPE. And, you know, because of its flexibility, it was also a, you know, another good choice, just from the perspective of seismic resistance or being able to withstand, you know, seismic settlements and seismic differential movements and faulting, and, yeah, so, it was a good fit for our job.

Will Vodak 

That’s great. Josh Goldberg was asking that question earlier about the seismic resistance of HDPE, specifically, when it relates to large diameter. And again, Garry, I think we’re gonna, I think this is a good place to get into some of the features and benefits really, of, of this large diameter HDPE. You know, this is the same HDPE that we know and love, it’s just a lot bigger. So you want to maybe go through this a little bit and talk about why HDPE is a good material for many water projects, and other projects like,

Garry 

right, I mean, you know, the first thing that always comes to mind, well, when we’re talking about benefits of HDPE pipe is the way that we join it, being able to but fuse your pipe and basically make it a continuous string of pipe from one end, from point A to point B. And you know, that’s a leak free joint, that’s not going to have to be worried about we’re not worrying about corrosion. Both of these gentlemen have mentioned, you know, corrosion concerns, whether it be soils, or even just being in seawater, we’re not worrying about that pipe, the life expectancy of that pipe is going to be the same as it is it is on day one, because even though it’s in those kinds of elements, the hydraulic flow, the smoothness No, no internal corrosion on that pipe that you may encounter with steel are meant, you know, other metal pipes, not an issue with the polyethylene pipe. So you get that long service life. So in the hydraulic flow, the smoothness is going to be consistent for the life of that pipe, no tuberculate can no build up inside that pipe, and flexibility. Each one of these jobs did require some sense of flexibility in their in their project design, whether it’s the float and sink, and you’re putting that down into the bottom of the ocean, or bending around as you as you saw in some of the construction sites in the you know, in the irrigation channel that Jordan was dealing with. So

Will Vodak 

for anyone that hasn’t been through an HDPE power hour or a balance of properties presentation with this guy, I encourage you to get on our on some of our YouTube information and other on demand webinars to look at information. It’s great, all the characteristics of HDPE and smaller diameters it’s been translated up just different types of you know, design considerations there to consider with with using larger diameters. Garry custom fabrication is another thing that we can do I know Marv use some on on his project, Jordan had a couple of fittings as well, you want to talk a little bit about custom fabrication with HDPE and and we’re I want to push through this so we can get to Marvin Jordan being able to talk a little bit about their specific projects as well. Right

Garry 

you know, custom fab we’ve always said well, if you can draw we can build it and that’s typically what we run into, you know, on on the the Victoria project, you know, we had some unique saddles baffles that that were needed on the pipe, you can see that I think in the picture there, but large you know, prefabricated structures, manifolds, headers, all those different things. We can do, we can custom make fittings, particular angles, if necessary. can be done this really helps in the ease in the installation and minimizes you know waste on the particular project

Will Vodak 

Yordan use some fittings I think some reducers and flanges Marv, you had some custom kind of header system or diffuser I can’t remember off top my head what it was can you elaborate a little more on that?

Mark McDonald 

Sure. So in our project we are required to have about 120 meter long diffuser and traditionally in in in these types of insulation, the main pipe so when the main pipe gets sunk, it needs to be airtight or watertight, because it’s actually pressurized while we’re sinking and that controls stream pipeline stream while the while the pipe is actually sinking through that S curve type configuration. But what that means when we have diffusers or just open ports, we have to come up with a way of closing those to be pressure tight during the installation process. And our job was a little bit more complicated because the hydraulics of the pipeline required us use these duckbill valves as well which complicated are sealing off these diffusers, so is go ahead manufactured or we designed and is CO manufactured some custom saddle connections and you can see some metallic framing. And all that metallic framing was sort of sacrificial to support you know a rod going through the duckbill to seal the pipe from the inside. And after it was on the bottom safety on the bottom. Then we had an ROV, go and undo the nut on top of that bolt and, and push to push the plate through into the pipe and everything became operational. So it’s a bit of an interesting thing. And we also had I think we had 130 degree bend on the job we had to change direction. So yeah, you’re

Will Vodak 

in you had some reducers flanges, elbows and anything to note on those.

Jordan 

Yeah. So the the saddles on this project are all electrofusion. You know, going from four inch diameter up to 30 inch diameter. Those were from what I understand custom designed by ag grew in Agra, Austria. There were several trips, I think that were made back to determine how how to manufacture those saddles. And they were custom designed for the project. And then I mentioned earlier the 67 different mainline 15 degree fittings, then I think we had a reducer that went from 63 to 78 inch diameter that that was also custom designed at Agra, Austria. So

Will Vodak 

great, Garry, you were an expert at finger painting and color painting in I’m sure high school and maybe in higher education. So you’re right, if Garry can draw it, we can likely build it flanges, elbows, different sorts of connection points, really were interested in being able to you know, make any type of design possible with HCP. Now, there are some limitations with larger diameter equipment. But you know, let’s let’s have those conversations and see what we can do to assist. Garry, we’re going to talk about three different examples of fusion equipment here. But really the the main point of the main point of this is to say that there is a good bit of equipment that ISCO has in house that can fuse, very, very large diameter pipe sizes. And we’re talking again, folks up to 120 inch solid wall HDPE piping. So Garry, do you want to walk through maybe some of these examples and, and which might be better suited for a particular situation?

Garry 

Yeah, I mean, you could see, you know, that was another thing that limited, I think large diameter, not only could we not anybody manufacturing it here in the US, there wasn’t any equipment in the US available to fuse those larger diameters. And then a few years ago, the McElroy Talon, it’s a little bit different than that what we’re traditionally used to in the fusion method, right, all the other fusion equipment, we’re used to lifting the pipe, bringing it into the machine, and then doing the fusion there and then pulling the pipe away from that, and then brought me in the next piece of pipe and continually fusing the string with the Talon. This unit actually drives over the pipe so your pipe is pre strung out and you simply drive the machine over, pick up the pipe in the two sections, lift them up, do the fusion, lay it back on the ground and continue driving forward to the next joint. So quite a bit different than what we’d been used to with fusions and then both of the units that we see also on these pictures the winos in the techno, Dewey, those are European machines. As I said earlier, Europe’s been you know quite a bit ahead in terms of use of large diameter pipe in Europe. up and so forth. And so this equipment been prevalent there. We’ve now brought some of that here in order to do some of these particular projects like the 88 inch one and Victoria, and again to do some of the fittings and fusion on the 78 inch job for Stein occur.

Will Vodak 

Yeah, we station all these at our sales persons yards around the United States, in their backyard sometimes in their garage. Totally kidding. You know, these are these are constantly being used on on big job sites. And really, please contact ISCO. If you’re thinking about making any fusions I think this is really where we have an opportunity to help decide and partner with engineering ownership contracting to discuss what option might be best for the installation. And Garry, we mentioned this a little bit earlier on but the features and benefits of this is just we’re there’s new technologies able to make thicker and thicker pipe sizes.

Garry 

Yep, it’s both the resin, you know, moving to that , which has a low slump resin, as it’s defined in the industry allows us to extrude thicker pipes, and then even the extruding equipment itself that enables us to to produce those thicker walls that some of these projects require, again, things that we just didn’t have here in the US just a few years ago.

Will Vodak 

So I want to be sure we allow and here’s actually sorry, Garry, I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. Here’s some examples of large diameter fittings. So these can be flange to elbows. They might be outlets Jordan mentioned earlier, some saddles, diffusers. Again, these fittings are all available. Actually, we had a good question that I want to take the time now to this is either for Jordan or Marv, for thermal conditions, did you all decide to install anchor blocks near structures or any transitions and other materials? Was there any concern of of expansion, lineal expansion and needing to restrain that?

Jordan 

Yeah, I can go first on that. So we have penetrations into concrete structures in three different locations on our projects. And yeah, we have a big big anchor block with Flex restraints is what they decided to use on on the 78 inch diameter pipe, so flexible restraints, and then those are cast into a reinforced concrete anchor block that’s, that’s in a buried condition. To keep the, you know, the pipe from pulling out of that structure in a longitudinal expansion and contract contraction of the pipe in the future.

Will Vodak 

More of any any for your project,

Mark McDonald 

we didn’t use any anchor blocks, per se, we only had one connection that we had any concerns with the, from the sewage plant out to where we connected as HDPE pipe was about 120 meter long wet exit to steel microtonal drive. And from that we had to put a restrained coupler to connect HDPE to. And in our case, the actual the benefit of of the ocean installation is there is not what is in the water, there’s not a big thermal change, like the temperature of water in the ocean, you know, changes from, you know, maybe, of course of you know, a few degrees over the course of the season. So, it wasn’t too substantial. But even with that, from the length of pipe, when we fuse it onshore sitting in the sun to thinking in the bottom, we had estimated the change in length of our pipe, the 1.9 kilometers of the boat, if I recall correctly, about two meters. So it’s pretty substantial for sure. But in our case, we didn’t really need to have any issues anywhere. So yeah,

Will Vodak 

great, great to know. Thanks for Thanks for answering that. So again, large diameter fittings, and I assume that you both are big fans of the data logger and using the data logger before jumping in gear, you want to explain what the data logger is, and some other quality measures that that have taken place here. Right.

Garry 

So you know, when you’re looking at, you know, a fusion, you know, we’re talking about joining, we get a question a lot well as well, how do you know that joint, that fusion joint is good. And one of the best ways that we can do that is with a data logger, which logs and monitors that fusion process being done that the right temperatures, the right times the right pressures, all the key elements of making a successful fusion, that they’re that they’re done properly. And you can see that and you can control that with the data logger. And I believe, you know, I think the data logger was used on both both of these particular projects, as well as you know, you can’t do a bend back test on a weld to when you were looking for joint quality right to prove out that weld, you know, so we use a high speed tensile impact puller where we can take those cross sections, send them in and actually put them in a in a stress test and see if that joint, you know, holds up properly as it should. And that’s what you see depicted in that tensile machine there on the right.

Will Vodak 

Marv, I think in one of our rehearsals you had mentioned, you wouldn’t dare fuse a CPU without a data logger. You’re a big fan? Well,

Mark McDonald 

for sure, certainly in when you get into these large sizes, I mean, the the consequence of having a post installation failure are so high that you can’t, can’t really afford to have a secondary or substandard views in the product. So for sure,

Will Vodak 

Jordan, any other quality measures that you felt were important for the soccer job?

Jordan 

I don’t think anything specifically, I understand I’m not an expert on the tech, no, Dewey. But I understand that there’s an internal data logger that that is built into that machine that if if the fuse is not in taut within tolerance, it will actually prevent the fuse from becoming complete. And so yeah, data loggers, I think are very critical for for projects, as Marvin mentioned. Yeah.

Will Vodak 

I want to give both of you the opportunity. Quickly. Before we do that, Barrett, I’m forgetting a poll question. Would you mind? Mind pulling up our next and last poll question of the day, which is how likely are you to use HDPE? Let’s, let’s maybe say on an extra extra large projects moving forward. So right now we have the majority of the audience about 90, about over 100 people now saying very likely, a couple of don’t have projects coming up 6%, or six out of the 240 that answered this question are not believers, Garry. So you know, might just not be the right fit. But maybe we can talk a little bit about these two projects, and allow both the members here, Jordan, maybe we’ll start with you, you want to maybe just talk a little bit more in detail about what the project was, you know, the accomplishment, the the goal, the objectives, and any other items that you feel that we have not covered here today. Yeah,

Jordan 

so the standard Career Service canal is 12 miles long from north to south, eventually, we’ll be tying into a dam that’s, you know, the water is going to be held in a reservoir or it is held in a reservoir Well, we’re the the projects being constructed for water savings, there’s there’s a lot of water infiltration that leaks you know, in the existing clay lined canal into the ground. So in , we constructed a the first phase, the owner actually decided to start away from the dam and move back towards the dam. So there were some some hydraulic challenges that we’ve had to undertake as we move back towards the dam. But we started on the bottom end with three miles of 48 to 63 inch pipe and this this current phases is three more miles, which is all 78 inch diameter Dr. 26 or millimeter I’m just trying to think if there’s any anything else that we haven’t covered, I’m not sure we’ve I think we’ve covered everything else.

Will Vodak 

We’ve we’ve covered a lot of Jordan, is there any maybe advice that you would give to those that are looking into HDPE large diameter HDPE for the first time I’m sure there was quite a learning process. Yeah,

Jordan 

yeah, I think some of the things that we’ve learned if you can get for this size size pipe more than 100 feet of feet of right of way would be nice. They were constrained with private property on both sides of the canal and and existing. So this this particular project, the Bureau of Reclamation has an easement. That’s it’s approximately 100 to 110 feet wide. This is the photo at the beginning of the project here on the left where you know the contractor was trying to figure out the limits of the track hose and this was the photo taken aerial photo taken with from a drone that was the first time that they walked the pipe over and and lifted it up and installed it into the trench. So there’s seven track hoes they’re picking this pipe up in a pretty good section and actually you can see three different 15 degree fittings that are in this in the curvature of the of the canal, this location since then, I think they’ve you know, got a couple of larger track hoes and I’ve been able to reduce number of track holes a little bit but and then the photo on the right it’s a reducer 78 by 63 The introducer that that is to connect on to the first phase that was constructed in . So, well, Jordan,

Will Vodak 

we really appreciate. Go ahead, Garry.

Garry 

Well, I was just gonna ask Jordan so, you know, hearing about the 15 degrees, and I’m sure some people in the audience might be like, Well, why wouldn’t you just put a, you know, 45? On there? What? What, what was your consideration? There? Was it the, you know, I can’t tell exactly the tightness of the curve, but you might help that might help the audience understand that 15 degrees typically aren’t as common in our world. So

Jordan 

yeah, so we left the the number of fittings, you know, we had the curvature of the of the canal, there’s, obviously the larger the pipe, the the larger the bending radius of that pipe, right. And so we had those constraints to deal with, and we allowed the, the supplier, and the manufacturer of the pipe to, and the contractor in this case, all of all of the team came together, and it was determined, you know, as it as a team as a whole, to go with more, you know, smaller degree fittings, then then then just putting in a 45 degree fitting, I won’t go into all the logistics of the hows and whys but sure, as a team, a team as a whole. They that’s what we all came to the conclusion that we wanted to use for for this installation to make those bands. Perfect, right?

Will Vodak 

Well, Jordan, we’re a little close on time here, that’s probably my fault. But I really appreciate you jumping on to, to talk about the sonic job. And we really appreciate your support with HDPE. And hit stick around just in case we have a couple of other questions. Mark, the BC job and McLaughlin point out fall, do you want to talk maybe a little bit more about this job and specifics?

Mark McDonald 

I’m sure I’ve touched on a few of them. But one of the interesting things is because of you know, the length of pipe that we had to assemble, and I think was about three months stringy installation or construction process. And you can appreciate that the big pipe like this, they were, you know, I think they’re averaging about a fuse and a half a day, like one day to get one dude one day day two, so it’s a pretty slow process. And when you get into those big fuses the heat soak time, and the cooldown time was pretty substantial. So we actually had to find somewhere to assemble this pipe. And you know, again, it was 120 kilometers away from the final location. And once that string string was assembled and tested, then we had to, you know, tow it to, I think it took a 48 hours or so to tow it to Victoria and, and a picture on the right there is sort of a final installation. So the inner tugboat on the left there that was sort of where the, the microtonal part left off. And way out in the ocean there is, you know, two kilometers away or calmer and a half away, was actually one of the largest hugs in the in the western seaboard. There was 120 metric ton tugboats, we needed for the end pole to wallow in to the sock and float and think process. Big pipe, you know, I guess we made the recommendation for me, quality control, you know, becomes much more enhanced, you just can’t afford a failure. So, you know, on a, you know, the standard says do quality control tests and an audit and you know, I would recommend that be done just to make sure that you know, the product is you know, you can’t really afford a failure setup up the pipe is so long and as a very long beam you can appreciate a you know, pipe that’s 80 inches in diameter or larger. You know, the contractor actually had quite a bit of an issue with initial setup of, you know, not being in a nice plane and trying to align the pipes in the fuser machine and, you know, you can, you can only pull down with a clamp so much before you started rounding the pipe and getting it out of tolerance. So that fuselage setup is very important to everything, you know, nicely in plane for and for a long distance because she can appreciate us sagging, you know, maybe, you know 234 pipe away, it’s still causing bending moments, you know, let the fusing machine so it’s kind of interesting, for sure. So, yeah,

Will Vodak 

more we had a question earlier. Last question for you here. What was the design life that you ultimately settled on on this design here with HDPE? Do you recall?

Mark McDonald 

Well, our requirements in our design build contract was a 75 year design life and we had no concern with with meeting that I mean HDPE has been you know in existence since the 40s I believe and although there’s been some growing pains with it, I mean, the quality of the resins now I have no issue with you know, a 35 year or longer design life. Yeah.

Will Vodak 

Great. Well, we really appreciate both of you deciding to go with HDPE. I think Garry will speed through this other applications. We were hoping one of you guys can tell us, the audience members here, you know, what’s next for HDPE and XXL form. You know, there’s a lot of different opportunities out there for we think waters, water transfer, water systems are good use. But you know, you can see here on this slide, there’s, there’s plenty of other options out there for you. So real quick, as we’re running out of time, just we’d be remiss to say, this great company that we work for work for ISCO industries, as a national solutions provider of small, tiny small mid range and XXL. HDPE, anything with polyethylene pipe, we’re very passionate about it, rental equipment, technical service, custom HDPE fabrication, and of course, it’s go inside. So we really appreciate you being here with us today. I believe most of your questions have been answered, we please connect with us on the variety of social media tabs. I think the only one that I still have is LinkedIn. So I don’t There we go. I still have LinkedIn here. Otherwise, we’d be friends with or I’d be friends with you. But go ahead and connect with this go insights on on social media. Garry, is there anything else that I missed today?

Garry 

Man, I don’t think so other than seeing my my smiley face in person. But we really appreciate our guests today. They’ve really been great to hear from them their experiences with HDPE pipe and predicted, particularly this large diameter well, so thank you to both Jordan and Marv, joining us today and sharing their insights with us.

Will Vodak 

A huge thank you to both of you. So once again, Mark Jordan, thanks so much. Any engineers in the audience looking for CPUs and PDH is please go ahead and use this system here. There’s a little Garry, what are those called? QR codes. That’s what I’m thinking of QR codes. Go ahead and scan that QR code. It’ll take you to our website and give us maybe a week or two to fill those out. There’s a lot of requests and it’s somewhat of a manual process. And a big thanks to all of our folks. In Weatherspoon Timmy, Jeremy Barrett, Heather, Donnie Kaiser. Donnie, we’ll get you on live on camera next time. So, guys, we’d like to thank you on behalf of ISCO thanks for joining us so much. And we will see you next time on ISCO insights. In the meantime, be safe out there and as always happy fusing. We’ll see you next time.

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What is HDPE and what is it used for? HDPE or high density polyethylene is a recycled number 2 resin used for its high strength-to-density ratio, corrosion-resistant piping, geomembranes and plastic lumber. In a nutshell that means it’s lightweight yet super-strong, impact resistant, long lasting and weather resistant. HDPE resists mold, mildew, rotting and insects, so it’s great for underground pipes used to deliver water and it’s easily molded into nearly any shape.  What lies beneath us is a structural network that can be hard for government entities to get a handle on because every bend, twist and turn is unique and intricate. Structural mistakes not only cost—they can also put large populations at risk when they can’t perform effectively and efficiently. Studies indicate that to eliminate costs, the key resources to be mindful of are human resources. Knowing the engineer making the plans and the city planner deciding where the HDPE can be piped safely are factors which, if ignored, can cost you a bid. That is where Winwater is most effective in our business strategy—keeping you connected to the right people that get you the details to eliminate errors, saving cost and ensuring successful project completion.  A project’s success is found in the details of execution. “The details aren’t details. They make the design,” states American designer, Charles Eames, responsible for groundbreaking contributions in the field of architecture, furniture, industrial, manufacturing and the photographic arts. The wisdom of this innovative pioneer is that he understood that it’s the pieces that make the whole.  From project to project, details vastly shift or change based upon several factors: placement, equipment, obstacles, materials and budget, none of which can work seamlessly without proper planning. At Winwater, we have the answers you need. Using our vast expertise and supply chain, we effectively ensure your bidding can eliminate cost and find a successful project completion.