What Makes an Effective Composite Repair & That Thing They Say About Boxes of Chocolate, with Tim Mally

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;17;12 Rhett On this edition of Pipeline Things, we bring in our guest, Tim Mally, to talk about composites. It's a lot of fun. And if you're like me, I think you're really going to enjoy some of the topics we dive into, which includes installation issues includes when and where to use composites, and maybe some of the challenges while Chris stuffs his face with chocolates. Thanks for joining us. 00;00;32;27 - 00;00;51;06 Rhett Hey buddy. Welcome to this edition of Pipeline Things. I am your host, Rhett Dodson, my co-host, Christopher de Leon. And here we are today. We have a, actually, I'm kind of excited about this topic, Chris, because I'm excited about our guest. Doc, I'm excited about the guests and the topic. Right. Chris I'm excited about the guests. 00;00;51;11 - 00;01;13;22 Rhett More excited about the guests, I think. Okay. Chris Well, the guest is from different guest is the show, bro. Rhett I'm the show. Chris Oh, so big show. Rhett Can we edit that out producers? No, you cannot keep going. Let's roll. Yeah. You guys know we're doing it live. So, Chris, the reason I'm excited is because, I mean, this is like a big part of our industry, but we haven't really talked about it yet on the show, and that always makes me, that always makes excited. I also think, that this is an example where there's I feel like so much information and so much out there, that for me personally, I think it raises a lot of questions about, you know, what decision I would make, for instance, if I were an operator. And that's why I'm excited about the topic. But making decisions is hard. 00;01;33;13 - 00;01;48;15 Rhett It is. You know, what else? Chris You know, like, no, no. Do you know how hard it is to make a decision? Yes. Aren't you remodeling your house or doing some work at your house? No, it's not remodeling your house. Thanks for your remodeling. The landscaping you're doing. Landscaping? Yes. You're making because Houston allows for beautiful weather. Rhett Yes. Let me explain how that conversation goes. Chris, my wife has handled all that. Thank you very much. Lovely working for handling that. But she comes in, she's like, which plants are we choose to which I'm like the pretty ones. The pretty ones. I don't I didn't say it that way. I think the exact words, different interpretation. I think it was more like, I don't care. Chris You never care about that bill. Rhett Well, then you. I think she showed me at least 3 or 4 different pictures of different types of plants. To which my response was, still, I don't know. And I was like, she picked yet. Ultimately, I did give her some guidance. I think it might even be applicable to today's podcast. No, I didn't grow pot or weed. No, I don't know what that is salvias I don't. Why are you asking me this? I keep these are beautiful. The only thing I agreed did you okay, how about pansies? You know that. Say, when you're a kid, don't be a pansy. She doesn't like pansies. I do remember that one. And we had an option for knockout roses. 00;02;46;27 - 00;03;04;26 Chris Yes. You know knockout. She's. Yeah. Amanda hates knockout roses. Put a bunch in and ripped them out. My final advice to Morgan was love. Whatever. Won't die. That's what they need. Chris It's all green, no colors. What? Rhett Turns out we put in a whole bunch of stuff. Look. And I don't remember. And one of them definitely did not get watered in at least two. The bushes are dead. But that's neither here. So, you have made these choices? Oh, yeah. They were. Don't ask me what was made. It's. Chris Did you get the foxtail bottle brushes? Those are cool, dude. I wouldn't know why you should have had Morgan tell you. Rhett The whole point of those Segway was, I do not know. And I still do. 00;03;24;00 - 00;03;48;22 Chris I feel like you feel like that with a lot of things sometimes, right. How do you feel about composites? Rhett Well, that's going to be the subject of today. So, without further ado, we're going to bring on our guests. So, our guest is Mr. Tim Malley. And so, I've known Tim for and feels like a hot minute at least I see I'm going to get it wrong, Tim, because I was going to guess which company you were with when I first met you. And I was like, oh, I'm probably going to guess the wrong one. So, I think it's here again. Tim Let's go for it. Rhett I was going to say NRI. Chris No, no, I was going to I'm just going to wing it. I was going to go with clock spring. Rhett No, it wasn't clock spring. Definitely not I but I didn't meet you that this is fun. I feel like I met you maybe five-ish years ago. Roughly. It was about, what do you and I met? Tim I was with clock spring, and that's what I was thinking. But it wasn't an NRI, right was there was another company in the middle of there that got bought, and I can't remember what the name of that one is. Chris Citadel. Oh. All right. Tim, was it said introduce yourself. Was it Citadel? It was it. Oh, yeah. Rhett Introduce yourself. Please tell the audience a little bit about you. Tim Yeah. Well, thank you guys for having me. If I'm excited to, be the first person introduce composites on your show. Chris Yes. You are you the first one you wanted to do? Because, we bring people on the show that we like, so that means a lot, but I appreciate. Welcome to the show. Tim You did call me Travis. Kelsey at the PPIM Conference. They'll come up. Yeah. Here it is right now. Hey, he's looking pretty old and working right now. I'm liking. I'm thinking I'm hitting my prime right now. So, wow. I'm like Travis Kelce of like ten years ago. Yeah. Chris Even up to like three years ago bro. Yeah. Not a bad trajectory. Just not where he is at a stage in his life. Tim Yeah, exactly. He's doing too much podcasting. So, Tim Malley, I got my degree in mechanical engineering in 2010. That was not a great time to get a job. And my only offer out of school was with Citadel Technologies. They made a carbon fiber and epoxy composite repair system, and I did a lot of design engineering for them. So, design engineering, testing, quality assurance, really learned a lot of what goes into making a composite. It took me all over the world. So, it's been a pretty dynamic and fun position. I went to some pretty crazy places. I went to Libya about nine months after the Benghazi attacks happened because they needed some pipe repaired over there. I would not want to go too far down the safety path on that, but that's just one of many, many places. So that this, this fun realm has taken me. 00;05;59;25 - 00;06;14;14 Chris So, I do parallel that. Pipelines can find a way to take you to some pretty cool places. Yeah. Oh, I think there's a lot of people that would align with that where, whether it's domestic or international, like, I feel like that theme is legit. Rhett It's just funny. I had lunch that day with somebody and I think their listener said that. I appreciate that some this individual told me that they, they just spent their first time on the right away. And I was like, how did that go? And they're like, dude, it was like the bushes were above my eyes. I was parted ways. There were snakes on the right away. I was totally unprepared for this. So anyway, all right, so, Tim, here's why I'm excited to talk to you. 00;06;34;10 - 00;07;07;04 Rhett I'm hoping that in this episode and I'm hoping for our listeners, you can help cut to the chase on what would would really be sound recommendations for when and where composites make sense. Because in my own again, I've been dealing with composites or surrounded by them for at least the last 14 years. And I feel like there's one camp that is you can use composites everywhere for anything, and virtually any scenario, regardless of the stress or the load or the threat. And I know for certain, absolutely that cannot be true, right? I don't care what lab testing or otherwise was done to say that. I really want to know from I'm hoping to get from you when and where. In your opinion, let's just start. There are the strongest use cases for composites. You would say, Tim Well, I do want to address an elephant in the room. I would say the elephant is that there's there's a pretty big industry wide push kind of towards B sleeves right now, and I completely get that. But I want to say that as, tool and as an industry, you need options. Walking into every ditch, like every ditch is going to present a very different, unique circumstance. I mean, you've got just issues with the right away like you just talked about with the snakes in the bushes. You've got issues with maybe you were out on an EMAT dig and you uncovered a wrinkle all of a sudden. What? You walked into that ditch with looking with a B sleeve, but you don't have that same option anymore? Yeah, yeah. So, composites are a tool. They're a tool to be used in the right scenarios. Rhett And so, some of those scenarios let's, let's I like how you went with my question. It's a better version of the term. There are some limitations. Maybe it's easier to approach it that way. Because I do agree I almost want to ask you why on the type B, but that's for another episode. I do feel like there's been a shift towards that recently, but it is fair to say there are limitations on type B geometric irregularities, certainly protruding major type B’s very difficult. Or you end up with a pumpkin which isn't desirable. You want to have an option a yeah, or you can have very thin wall, very thin wall creates welder issues for type B. So, there's 100% a place for composites in the industry. So, let's start from there. Then. Also when you have it as a place, where are they really effective? Where in your mind do composites shine? 00;08;53;02 - 00;09;28;02 Tim I'm going to answer that question with a question. Do you know what the regulations say on alternative repair methods right now? I'll even give you the reference 192.714. Rhett All right. So, we have a regulatory expert in the room. Chris Oh, I'm not an expert. That's Chris I'm not an expert. But, my guess would be as long as it's passed valid engineering testing as long as it's been designed and tested by legitimate analysis for say sorry, Siri, let's try Siri. 00;09;28;04 - 00;09;57;11 Tim I'm curious what ChatGPT t would say about if we can find out, but no tell please. And like just I'm assuming it's a type. Here's my guess. It's an approved method is something that has been tested by SMEs and is appropriate for the for the defect type. It would be my guess. Yeah. Right now very close. Right now it says the your alternative repair method must be through technically proven engineering tests and analyses shown to permanently restore the MAOP of the pipeline. 00;09;57;18 - 00;10;13;19 Chris Permanent is that we missed an opportunity. We should have asked him. We should have asked him. No, I'm not going to do that. It. Why would you go here in the prep? But I'm ready. No, no no no. The fun question would have been what part of that do you think is the most important? Oh that's fair. That's what I would ask, because you've been doing this a long time. What? What part of all of that statement you think is the most important for an operator to consider when they're choosing that repair type? Tim Let's assume that you all agree in the room. Let's assume permanent. Chris Let's assume nobody in the room has an opinion anyway. It's only us in the room. Okay, Sarah, we don't give out her real name. Oh, we recorded this. Oh my gosh. We need to edit that. I need new rules. No. Okay. Yeah. So so let's get to that. Right. So what part of that do you think is the most important part? Because you touched on a lot of things right in there. Tim I think the important part, yeah. Are the technically proven engineering tests and analyses. So, tests analysis a lot of testing has been done on composites over the last couple of decades or so. Even back into the 90s when the clock spring was originally tested by the GRI. Yeah. And then a lot of advances in composite engineering, the materials that have used the engineering behind the how composite gets applied to specific anomaly types. But you want to have testing and then you want to have an analysis that shows why that testing performed the way it did and can extrapolate into the anomaly sizing that you're actually finding in the field, and the material properties and operating conditions of the pipeline itself. Rhett So easy examples. Corrosion, right? I mean, like we've done tons with corrosion. We've shown that you can reinforce all the way up to the limits of B 31 G and you get great response. Yeah. Right. You get you know, really full restoration of, the pipes original load carrying capacity, I think permanent. That's right. You both deflect it and answer that question at the same time, because I think it's fair. Like we dealt with this with Brian, like, oh, Chris I'm happy to speak to it. What is permanent? Not what is permanent, how to interpret 714 in that regard. Right. And I think the idea there goes back down to you have to define and defend, which is the coined phrase that we got from Brian. That's true. And I also think that each operator, when they're determining how they're going to I'm going to start with this word, how they're going to mitigate. I think that matters because every operator has a different philosophy. Yeah. And so, if you're saying I'm going to mitigate this through repair, then you have to think of and we've talked about this before, let me finish. Right. It's I mitigating or am I eliminating. Right. And and for me that's what your kind of thinking about. And I think when we speak of that, when we when we speak of repair, we get mixed in those two spheres of mitigating and eliminating. And so, for example, we would if I may, for argument's sake, you may we could assume a type B eliminates the threat of a defect. Let's call it corrosion. If it's within the type B I'm for for the sake we're going to say eliminates because if it were to fail, it supposedly contained because it's supposed to be pressure containing. Well, I'm generalizing all right. Right. Whereas if I were to choose, let's call it a type A right, there is still a potential threat for corrosion if part of that repair method were to fail. So you could almost say, I'm not saying this is it. That's maybe more of not an elimination path. It's more of a remediation path, right? Or a mitigation path. Right. So there's still some means of that failure coming that that threat coming back online. And so it makes me think about like what I just said. Right. So what is the operator's posture for what a repair looks like. And is that repair mitigation or is it elimination. Yeah. That's my that's my take. You asked me well you deflect I was like I didn't deflect. 00;14;03;07 - 00;14;20;25 Rhett No no no I didn't get it. Tim I don't I don't want to poke holes in that. But I did listen to your podcast that you had with David Futch. Okay. How about if type B sleeves are truly eliminating, you know, and there's a lot of variables that go into that. And you want to control those right procedures to make sure that doesn't happen. 00;14;20;27 - 00;14;37;23 Chris Yeah. And the one with Futch was about permanency, guys. For those of you that are listening, go to our website search Futch or such, you know, permanency and it'll come up continue. Tim So in terms of composites, here's here's the big difference in the way that the industry looks at them right now. For a type B, if you put it on. 00;14;37;23 - 00;15;04;10 Tim And to your point, most people are saying we're eliminating this threat. It's going to last indefinitely. Rhett And I that's not true. But yes, it lasting indefinitely I agree, I do. Tim We agree on the the Futch podcast. And they didn't even say indefinite in the podcast. So that's on me okay. Rhett Oh no I meant I good student I, I think no I think you're right that the industry would use the word I would disagree with even whether or not a type B is permanent permanent like forever. 00;15;04;15 - 00;15;34;09 Rhett Nothing's forever. Tim But somebody's gonna keep going because that relates to how the industry looks at it and accepts it. And the perception did by regulators perception it's accepted as permanent, permanent. It's permanency. Yeah. So here's here's what a good composite should strive to do. It should strive to outlast a reasonable time frame of the pipeline's remaining life. So we put these pipelines in the ground. 00;15;34;12 - 00;15;52;09 Tim How long ago, 60, 70 years ago. A lot of them. Everything. What 60% of the pipelines 70 ish would encompass? Rhett Most of you know what that's a good question. I'm not sure what the average age of a pipeline is, but it's got to be pretty old. 60 okay. Tim And what was the design life of those pipelines when they originally got indeterminate? 00;15;52;11 - 00;16;09;16 Tim Was it. I I've actually never I've never been asked that. Do you know, I've heard I've asked this question a lot. I've heard 50 years a lot. Rhett What would they base that anyway? They won't even do it. I don't have all the answers. These are just. That sounds mean. It's probably somewhat arbitrary asking people what their thoughts are. 00;16;09;18 - 00;16;29;12 Chris Yeah, I've heard a hundred. Yeah, okay. Let's go. I don't have a source for it. They might not answer that now. Now it would be like, well, it depends on the function of integrity forever. All right, let's go. Tim But how do we ensure the continued operation safely of those pipelines? Yeah, through an integrity management plan. We inspect and we confirm. Or if we can't inspect, we use other methods to confirm the continued validity of the operation of that pipeline. I would say with composites, you know, you install it when you properly design, you should have it, for all intents and purposes, a discussion on the front end as you're looking to implement a composite of our pipelines in general, like we want to extend any anomaly by a minimum of this amount. 00;16;56;28 - 00;17;16;18 Tim And this is a regular conversation that we have with the operators that we currently do business with. Chris So questions. It's an extension of life. Rhett This guy has taken over the podcast. He's not asking questions. Rhett A great job arriving. It's a guest way you bring guest to your home to have fun. That's what he's doing. Let him work. I'm the star of the show. 00;17;16;21 - 00;17;34;08 Rhett I know you do a great I love that. So you're you're bringing in operators and you're framing a question. How much how long do you want this to last? Yes. Yeah. Okay. And there's what are you trying to do is what you're asking. Tim When your designing a composite. There's two primary things that you want to look at. You want to look at the long term strength of that composite. 00;17;34;10 - 00;17;55;25 Tim Because there is a creep mechanism that can come into play with the composite strength if you don't design it properly. Chris When you say creep, help us visualize what you're saying, like, help me see what you're saying when you say strength and creep. Tim Creep is a loss of strength over time. Got it? So like if you've got a rubber band that ever stretched out to beyond its original. 00;17;55;28 - 00;18;03;02 Rhett Yeah, I mean, not your neighbors. 00;18;03;05 - 00;18;23;24 Chris All right, so we understand what you meant by strength and creep. Tim Yeah. So a properly designed composite is going to know what those long term strength properties of the material are and ensure that that creep mechanism never comes into play by adding safety factor. So we're not taking the day one tensile strength and saying this is what we're going to use in all of our calculations. 00;18;23;27 - 00;18;49;07 Tim I say we as the universal we of composite world. The other mechanism that you would want to take a look at is cyclic fatigue. So for gas operators who don't have as much cyclic fatigue, you still want to run that analysis, but it's not going to be as big of a governing factor in your composite design. And for liquids operators where you do have a lot more cyclic fatigue considerations. 00;18;49;07 - 00;19;07;02 Tim That's something that you want to include in your research on both your testing and your analyzes, including the installation pressure. Rhett All right. So what you're actually getting to Chris. You know this is kind of relating it to the ILI world. You like to talk a central variable. Yeah I still like where he's going. It's right to essential variables. And I was actually going to ask the question but he just went into it. Yeah. I felt like for the first time I was going to have to raise my hand in my own podcast. I, I, so, Tim, you I want to I want to make sure the audience understands that. Right. So there's steady state and burst. 00;19;21;29 - 00;19;43;18 Rhett Right. And there's a lot of testing that's done on composites to address that. Yeah, but that's only one part of the equation that only says, hey, I can restore the strength up to this point, right? What you're referring to is the fatigue component of certain types of threats. And I want the audience to appreciate that, because what happens is the composite can restore the strength of the pipe. 00;19;43;20 - 00;20;12;28 Rhett But if the pipe is still free to, let's say, expand or contract, I want I don't want to use free to flex. But if the pipe is free to move under the flex, it will go. It will, it that crack or that, that fatigue prone feature, it can still grow underneath that. Right. And so what you're suggesting is that if fatigue is a consideration for your line, then installation pressure becomes an essential variable. 00;20;12;28 - 00;20;33;15 Rhett Correct. And the installation of the composite. Whereas it might not be for something like, let's say that an ethane line or something like that. Right. Okay. Interesting. All right. And so y'all are getting into these conversations on the front end as well. And so if you have a fatigue prone line what's your general recommendation. Tim It depends. It depends. 00;20;33;15 - 00;20;51;23 Chris Oh he did he did listen to this podcast. Yeah. Favorite engineer of all time. Yeah. No. Or just response. Yeah. We didn't tie his hand. Rhett Is it something along the lines. Do you try and reduce the pressure as much as practical? Because I have had this argument with a close friend of mine, too, because he's like, look, we can't bring the line down to zero. 00;20;51;25 - 00;21;08;21 Rhett But he's like, look, if we can cut the pressure in half, you know, that's potentially an eight x fatigue life increase because you got a cubic component of the, the fatigue and was like, oh, you know, that's fair. So like even if you can't bring the pressure all the way down to zero, right. That's what I don't want the audience to hear is to use composites. 00;21;08;21 - 00;21;22;05 Rhett You have to go down to zero. Is that ideal? Probably, but it's not necessary. Tim Won't get used and I won't have a job. If we wait for the line to go down to zero, I that's that's that's and that's what I was getting at. But there has been a lot of testing where the install pressure was at zero. 00;21;22;08 - 00;21;49;02 Tim So you do want to understand how the composite reacts to various types of threats when the installation pressure is not zero. And you should have an engineering analysis method that extrapolates that test data so that when you have a line, you have all of the pipe information, defect information, operating conditions that can go into an engineering assessment and allow you to create a design that works. 00;21;49;09 - 00;22;03;09 Rhett Now here's what I'm confused about. So you've hit on a few a few of the essential variables. I don't know if we covered them all, but what I thought we were missing, one that I'm curious about. Okay, I want to give you a chance to ask, but I want to interrupt. Chris, I want to interrupt him on this point, which is so. 00;22;03;09 - 00;22;21;06 Rhett So, Tim, you're talking about all this engineering assessment that's going into the design of these composites. And I'll be honest with you, I think it's surprising me a little bit because I feel like a lot of times it's repair people in the ditch. Hey, I need a composite. And they're slapping them on between the time when they're opening up the features and the ditch. 00;22;21;08 - 00;22;43;11 Rhett When is this analysis taking place? Is this something that you guys are doing on the fly? Does this analysis take minutes, weeks, hours? I'm a little bit surprised at some of what you're saying. Tim Yeah. This is, a great question. Great discussion because there are a lot of ways to do it. To your point, you can do a lot of this engineering analysis on the front end. 00;22;43;14 - 00;23;01;21 Tim So if you were going to take a look at the ILI data, like obviously that's what you use to select the digs that you're about to go excavate. Granted, there's tolerance on the ILI tool. There's even tolerance on the NDE methods. Depending on what you're looking for in the ditch. But once you do a few different buckets. So let's say let's add that tolerance. 00;23;01;21 - 00;23;32;08 Tim The to the plus side for sizing, making sure the composites are still applicable based again on that testing and analysis. Then you can go out to the ditch with the plan with material in hand. And that decision on how many layers and over what length can be separated into a pre engineered design, if you will. So that can take into account all of the variables that we're talking about and separate it into a few different bucketed options Rhett so that you have all of your designs essentially before you go into the ditch. 00;23;32;08 - 00;23;51;01 Tim And it's more like you're picking from a table. Got it? Okay. That's that's one option. But there's other operators who they still want. They'll send, the engineering assessment form into a design engineer. The design engineer will turn around a design package with all the variables that we just talked about. And that can be done within 30 minutes to a few hours. 00;23;51;03 - 00;24;09;27 Tim It's not a hard process, but the data collection is probably the most difficult and cumbersome part of the process. Chris So I remember and, maybe we'll answer this after the break. Rhett You want to ask the question to set the stage so you can think about it, since you're kind of not coasting already, I'll kind of two. I'm totally good, right? 00;24;09;28 - 00;24;29;04 Rhett I'll kind of give you a two for when the break is this show brought to you by Tim Mally with guest Rhett Dotson and Christopher de Leon. Chris I remember I was out on a ride away once. So I had, I had the, the fortune of being able to see that whole lifecycle right of threat management to assessment, to call in repairs and then going out and seeing some of the repairs done. 00;24;29;06 - 00;24;45;03 Chris And that was pretty neat. And I remember I was out on one and let's just call it because I want to be a bit arbitrary here. The pipe was then it was pretty old and it had a coating type on it. And if you were going to go to where you found maybe some kind of condition of coating, you'd probably be digging for a while. 00;24;45;05 - 00;25;04;26 Chris And so I asked, I was like, how do you manage this interface? Right. So I've now surface prepped because I'm going to sleeve it. And I will admit it was an A sleeve. And so I was like, so I know this is a corrosion threat. How is it the A sleeve mitigating? Because I didn't think it was eliminating the the metal loss that existed. 00;25;04;26 - 00;25;21;12 Chris And they're like, oh, we put this epoxy in there. I was like, okay. And then how to add the strength back because you've lost wall thickness. Like, oh, that's where the steel sleeve comes in. I was like, great. I said, now how do you manage the interface of where you've now sandblasted? There's no coating. And then you have a type A. 00;25;21;14 - 00;25;40;07 Chris And so for me that was a big problem. I said, if we're going to really think about mitigating the thread that's under the sleeve, I need to understand what's happening around the sleeve. And so at that time, they had an approved matrix of what type of coatings you could put around the sleeve, and that would also interface with the existing coating type. 00;25;40;10 - 00;26;01;04 Chris So to my question, that's kind of setting the frame. I kind of think of the same thing with the composite, right. It's like I'm exposing the pipe. I'm doing surface prep. And you've mentioned the variable of strength and fatigue, but I feel like there's something else there. And it's how are we getting the wrap to stay on the pipe? 00;26;01;07 - 00;26;16;12 Chris Because if the the wrap is not staying on the pipe, then I feel like that's something I need to do, is I have to engineer that. And that does vary. Is that where the break comes? Rhett Yes, because it's kind of you're going to closely get into installation issues, which is where I want to go. So yeah, I just want to talk about just taking it back. 00;26;16;12 - 00;26;30;22 Rhett Boys, to your back. I am going to give me the mantle. All right. To our audience. Hang on. We're going to be right back while we get into surface prep and installation issues with our host Tim Mally. Thanks. 00;26;31;25 - 00;26;50;02 Rhett All right. Well thank you. Audience. Yeah. She did a little clapping. Like, what do you know? You give her one thing and the power goes straight to the head. I've seen that before, but for our audience, we upgraded Miss Producer. We got her, like, an official director's thing now, and, her attitude with that instrument in her hands. 00;26;50;02 - 00;27;07;28 Rhett Yes. It's like Zeus with a thunderbolt 100%. Man. She went, like, all out. I can't wait till you guys see that PPIM next round. Yeah. That's good. So, audience, we're back, with our guest, Tim Mally from, It's not CSI, though. It's Hinkle. Right? We got bought by Hinkle. Hinkle. Right. And, we've been. 00;27;07;28 - 00;27;28;18 Rhett And I'm enjoying this conversation. Tim, I gotta be. It's it is. It's refreshing to talk to you. And I mean that like it for me, this is genuinely enjoyable. So Chris started to ask a question at the end, but it went on for like five minutes. I know there was a question embedded in there, and I know it was directly going to feed into the discussion around installation, which is where I see importance of adhesion. 00;27;28;25 - 00;27;48;29 Rhett But how does that. Yes, there. We're there. Go for it, Tim. Tim It's nice because adhesion actually ties a lot of the things that we've been talking about together. So we talked about cyclic fatigue performance and adhesion is one of those things that allows the composite to maintain bonded when you install with pressure. And then the pressure drops below that. 00;27;49;01 - 00;28;04;27 Tim And so that adhesion. Yeah you're right. It is something that you count on for that composite performance, especially in cyclic fatigue service. Rhett Well I was going to say even Chris I mean, it almost sounds critical without the adhesion. It's done because otherwise how do you do in the window. Rhett So like for instance like no. Now let me let me interface here. 00;28;04;27 - 00;28;23;05 Rhett So like when you think about reinforcing a a corrosion feature for burst, the adhesion doesn't matter as much because the pipe is going to expand into the composite and engage it just because the pipe wants to expand and it's going to run into the hard shell on the outside, Chris and then you can have electrolyte creep in between the interface. 00;28;23;05 - 00;28;38;15 Rhett Right? I'm saying so again adhesion is critical. Adhesion is critical. But that what you just describe wasn't addressed in the test that were done in a lab. Chris If you put it on bringing up a different material, you get it back to the essential variable of what do I need to look out for as it functions. All right. Right. 00;28;38;16 - 00;28;55;15 Chris So it's not just load transfer. It's also it's ability to mitigate what I'm repairing. In this case it's corrosion. Without adhesion it falls apart. All right. Tim You need to prevent moisture from getting to the water. And so and we do that through through the resins that are used to the adhesion of the resins that are used. 00;28;55;15 - 00;29;13;15 Rhett I wasn't saying it didn't matter, I would I was saying is that the you were describing a different behavioral mechanism, right. Which is more of an environmental mechanism than necessarily a load mechanism. And that particular instance, Chris I guess what I was trying to get to for you to affirm is it's the adhesion matters paramount, because it does two things right. 00;29;13;22 - 00;29;41;09 Chris It it insulates the threat from the environment. Right. So if you're having a time dependency based on some kind of corrosion mechanism, then that's how you keep the moisture out, right? And that impedes the ability of corrosion to continue to grow. So you stabilize it, but then it also allows for it to, potentially make sure that the, the, the load transfer happens. 00;29;41;11 - 00;30;14;14 Chris Right. So as you're cycling and the hoop stress changes in the pipe is expanding and not expanding its ability to adhere to the pipe maintains or ensures that load transfer now not in all cases. Right? If it's at 70 per second, please go for it, brother. That's what you're here for. You're the host. Let's go. Tim So there's a test program that happened in 2023 where we had very similar anomalies on two different spools of pipe, and we installed one at zero psi and one at 50% SMYS, ultimately with a delta P of 10 to 72%. 00;30;14;14 - 00;30;39;18 Tim SMYS for this program going for a thousand cycles to imitate, you know, some gas service. It's about a 3 to 1. Okay. Keep going. So obviously your min in your max strain on the defect is going to be different between installing at zero psi and installing with 50% SMYS because you already have strain in the defect when you're installing 50% SMYS. 00;30;39;21 - 00;31;04;13 Tim But what there's the more curious investigation point of this test was the Delta strain. With each cycle, you would imagine that when you have 50% SMYS install that you're not going to you're going to have a lot higher delta strain per cycle compared to a 0%. SMYS right? Well, the in this particular test the delta strain was equal. 00;31;04;16 - 00;31;32;19 Tim The way that that happened is because of the adhesion. So there is something that we're working on modeling right now and putting some FEA and some additional full scale testing into. But to to quantify this effect. But what we've seen so far is that because of the adhesion of a composite to the pipe, it will reduce like you're going to have when you go down to zero PSI, you're going to have positive strain in that defect. 00;31;32;22 - 00;31;59;08 Tim But ultimately what that means is over your delta p cycle, you're going to have the same delta strain per cycle for this particular anomaly. In this particular test. It's not I'm not applying this across the board as installing at zero psi. Chris So all we've done is reinforce adhesion is paramount. Tim Adhesion is paramount. Yes. Correct. Rhett And this look in my eyes, the skepticism that you see. 00;31;59;10 - 00;32;27;28 Rhett So, keep it bonded. So with that, I think it feeds very nicely into, I think what becomes a major concern for a lot of people that want to use composites. And I think it's a fitting place to, to end this particular conversation. And it's maybe not. The last time we talked, I've been hearing my issue with, with installation is, I think for type B, people feel like, hey, a welder installs that and I can inspect the weld, right? 00;32;27;28 - 00;32;49;28 Rhett And my welder is qualified. I know y'all have qualification on the install procedures, but I think there's some feeling of, hey, as long as I can check that weld, I feel good. And I've been hearing about how do we check composites or how do we handle installation issues, and I'm curious what progress has maybe even made because I've not paid attention in this conversation over the last ten years. 00;32;49;28 - 00;33;09;04 Rhett But I know because I've talked to people, there's numerous ways composites can installed wrong. The ditch doesn't look anything like the lab at all, right? And you've got temperature effects that come into play. You've got potentially weather effects that come into play. I mean, it's Friday afternoon. The human factor dropping ditch crew wants to go to the ditch. 00;33;09;06 - 00;33;27;21 Rhett It's 20 degrees. Let's just backfill it. In reality, that never sets up. And it's like you just put putty on the pipeline. Yeah. So I'm curious what steps have been made to to look at or address installation issues in the composite world, or how would you respond to an operator who tells you, I don't want to use composites because of installation issues? 00;33;27;24 - 00;33;57;27 Tim Yeah. So there is a big effort going on right now to continue to look at different quantifiable inspection methods to say this composite is good or this composite is not. And some of the issue in developing a technology like that, going into all those different abnormal operating conditions so you can walk into with different dishes, is that sometimes a composite that doesn't look good because like you guys are ILI guys because of filtration issues. 00;33;57;27 - 00;34;26;08 Tim Right. Like maybe you don't have the right filtration on this. The method. And that makes a composite look bad when in actuality it's good. So while we continue to develop those inspection paths to get to a quantifiable technology that allows us to go into each ditch, the in the meantime, you know, there's, there's processes that have been developed to say, yeah, you've been through training, there's the operator qualification that you have to do. 00;34;26;11 - 00;34;50;21 Tim The installation steps are on a printed sheet. We call it the quality verification form. That's different for I'm sure it's a different name for different composite manufacturers. But for the purpose of this conversation, quality verification form is going to list out the different steps of the application, what you're looking for with that step, and then having the trained installer initial each step of that process. 00;34;50;24 - 00;35;10;20 Tim Then at the very end, when you get through it all, you've done the curing portion of of the resin for the composite. Then there's a chart that says this is what good looks like, and this is what bad looks like. So there's an acceptance and rejection criteria. And if it's rejected, there's another column that says this is the corrective action. 00;35;10;22 - 00;35;31;10 Tim Should this pop up. And so we get calls from the ditch quite often saying, hey, this is like a wrinkle or a bubble in the composite. What do we do? And we'll work through that corrective action to make sure, because that wrinkle or that bubble, it might go all the way down to the surface and could be an indication of a disbond at the bond line. 00;35;31;12 - 00;35;58;04 Tim Or it could just be that I don't have that load transfer because you're transferring through air, or it's imperfect or whatever. It's not good. So you need to remediate it before. So the goal is to get the contractors, the inspectors, the quality and the documentation processes. While we're waiting for that, that technology to continue to develop down the road, to get all of that quality and assurance and documentation aligned in in a row. 00;35;58;04 - 00;36;19;03 Tim In the meantime, Chris Do you feel like the composite industry is under a lot of scrutiny about the importance of installation? Yeah. Do you think other repair types are under the same level of scrutiny at installation? That's the hard question, Chris. Tim No, but I think part of that's a feel like I didn't see. Is there a report out there? 00;36;19;03 - 00;36;35;22 Chris I'm saying like, yeah, I mean, this is what you do for a living, right? You're out there so you get feedback. It's a great one. I don't know about. You ever been asked what you're because here's what happens. Right? Is like, we are really picky about why we feel like composites are qualified for certain repair types. Right. 00;36;35;22 - 00;36;55;19 Chris And I go back to it's like you can put A in right if you don't use enough epoxy and if you didn't fit it upright there's no load transfer. It's the same challenge. You can have ingress of an electrolyte which allows for the chemical process to continue the corrosion. So to continue. And if you didn't fit it upright you don't have load transfer, especially if there's not the right amount of epoxy. 00;36;55;19 - 00;37;18;04 Rhett I mean, I agree on that. Like that was something my expert told me once, right? Look, he's like an improperly installed repair period. Doesn't work. Yeah. And so we put all this all this emphasis on you guys have qualified you. And I'm not trying to throw you a bone. I'm just saying, like, the question was, I feel like generally since I've got a little bit involved around the composite guys, you guys are and a tremendous amount of scrutiny around, have you been tested? 00;37;18;04 - 00;37;49;20 Chris Who's validated? You guys? Why do we think we can do this repair type? Yeah. Tim And I would like to say that we accept that challenge. And we want to add a good boy, raise the bar and meet it. Right. Oh, do you think? Yeah, well, I do. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, I do want to say, you know, one of the benefits is that even if the, you know, for all these different repair types, let's say everything under the sun gets something missed in the installation of it. 00;37;49;23 - 00;38;12;10 Tim The benefit of a composite is that you are going to be able to see that issue on your next inspection run. Yeah, because you can see under it. Right. Rhett Because you're like the magnetic for the magnetic technology and ultra circular. Yeah. What an ultrasonic. I mean the type A type B is probably not going to have the same necessarily the same problems and an ultrasonic, whereas magnetics for sure. 00;38;12;18 - 00;38;34;00 Rhett I do, I do definitely can see that. Right. For sure. Tim You, you it's it's a nice safety check. Right. Well, not to say you want to monitor everything, so I mean, it's it's nice to have that option. Chris We do everything and so with the lens of are we talking about integrity. Are we talking about safety or we're talking about compliance. 00;38;34;03 - 00;38;50;22 Chris All right. So that's kind of a theme we've been on lately. Is it is this a compliance mindset. Is this an integrity mindset. Is this a safety mindset? I have two fun questions. And I think that it's kind of like that journey, right, of saying, hey, first we had to do a bunch of, pig and eggs. Then it went to, oh, do are we picking it again in the right place? 00;38;50;22 - 00;39;18;02 Chris And I feel like that's a lot of integrity management choices. Yeah. And then that's kind of the path towards safety, which is well, let's also make sure that we're just making good integrity choices about working people safe. Yeah. And I would say I do think your last comment there is very fair because as an operators, installing composites or A's or B's, they need to understand what are the risk parameters of that remediation technique or that repair technique, whatever terminology you want to put on it and then operate it as a system. 00;39;18;04 - 00;39;37;07 Chris If I know it's a corrosion flaw and I'm putting a composite on it, and I did this 15 years ago, I probably shouldn't be turning an eye on all those that I think are repair, and I should probably be looking at see what the most recent ILI run says. Right. So just a comment of I think you guys are under a lot of scrutiny and I appreciate your comment, but I do think that this is just one part of a broader system. 00;39;37;07 - 00;39;55;22 Chris If you're not replacing it then you should obviously not just turn a blind eye to it either. Right. Rhett two questions. Do you think eventually you'll we'll get to something like an 1104 style criteria when like 1104 as acceptable flaws and girth welds and you can move. Is that ultimately the goal of where you think you all are going to try and get? 00;39;55;25 - 00;40;19;21 Tim I would like that. Yeah, absolutely. Personal goals. Yeah. Which then may become industry goals through podcasts like this. Shameless plug. Maybe I should have a GAP on it. Rhett Second question, look, because Chris brought it up since he was talking about type, mentioned, some why would I do a composite over a type A or vice versa? 00;40;19;21 - 00;40;35;27 Rhett Can you give me a good answer for that? Or is there really, functionally in your mind, a difference between a type and a composite comes in here? I think that's where this comes in. I didn't ask you the question. Asked him the question. Let's be quite clear. Trying to love him. He doesn't need Aliu. Okay, fine I would he's I'll try to like try with. 00;40;35;28 - 00;41;14;11 Rhett Travis Kelce grabs the ball and brings it into the end zone for. Tim I don't know that we're thinking the same thing, so let's hear what you have. Rhett He probably has a terrible answer. I'd rather hear yours. Oh. Yeah, I just let it go. Go ahead. Tim I'm not, here to talk bad on anything as a composite. If you just want to take a look at some of the differences on how a type A and a composite get installed, I would say that biggest difference is that bond of the adhesive of that composite over the entire surface of the repair zone. 00;41;14;13 - 00;41;40;17 Tim And that's going to be what you're counting on for. You know, once the pipe drops below install pressure that there's no potential gaps because even if an external coating doesn't do his job, because you've got that bond to the pipe and you're not allowing any potential paths for moisture ingress. And and then the second thing, would be it's kind of an easy, soft ball, right? 00;41;40;19 - 00;42;10;17 Tim As as you guys have talked about on previous podcast, Fit Matters for your repair types. Yes. Let's go. There's going to be a lot of areas where, as you're trying to do a not completely circular pipe and they're not completely circular, A sleeve where a wet wrap composite can conform to the exact geometry. So like a bend, wrinkle, those types of things are going to be obviously super easy soft balls to to choose a composite. 00;42;10;19 - 00;42;26;27 Chris So for me that's where the, the box of chocolates come in. So for those of you that aren't on YouTube yet, but Tim did a great job bringing us some fancy chocolates and it's got, 36 different flavors. You open it up, make sure that there's something there that already I trust in there. You get open. Otherwise I would not know if I would trust you. 00;42;26;27 - 00;42;45;14 Chris Bringing us a box of chocolates, but I think I trust him. And, my analogy is going to be. Because if you've been in enough ditches, you never know what you're going to find until you see the bite. And it feels a whole lot like this box of chocolates. Like. And let's be real about that, right? It's like the ILI, I will call some things, but the tool won't always see everything. 00;42;45;14 - 00;43;04;02 Chris Right. And so once you expose it, you might end up with like, hey, we've been here already. This looks great. And sometimes it's like, oh God, the A is not going to work here. What do I do? Right? And I think that's kind of the role that you guys play. And I actually I'm curious I mean you guys have more than one solution. 00;43;04;19 - 00;43;28;03 Chris Right. I mean talk to us a little bit about the path of how you go from choosing between the different solutions. We have. Yeah. Great question. So in general I would say you could lump the choices into a few different options. Obviously there's a rigid coil, and the rigid coil was the original composite because it was tested in the 90s. 00;43;28;03 - 00;43;58;14 Tim The granddaddy, the granddaddy. And it does have a lot this spring. Chris Ever say you should have come to me first? Go. Continue. Okay. Tim So. So that's one option. Then you've got your moisture activated systems. So that's a wet layup. Typically a fiberglass can be a carbon fiber. It's pre impregnated in a lab. So you're removing the saturation variable from the field installation portion. 00;43;58;16 - 00;44;21;02 Tim And then you wrap that around. But typically those are going both. Both of those first two options I mentioned are going to be limited to metal loss and dense. If you're looking at the tests and analyzes again what they're appropriate for, then you get into a carbon fiber and epoxy system. It's a wet layup. You're getting a dry carbon fiber. 00;44;21;02 - 00;44;47;18 Tim You're saturating that carbon fiber with a two part epoxy. And you're applying that, in the field. That one is a little bit more applicable in terms of the amount of different anomalies that can be reinforced with it. And so if you're looking at stuff outside of metal loss and dense, you're going to automatically go to that. I was actually inspired, you know, by, by different charts within the industry. 00;44;49;00 - 00;45;04;20 Tim They'll say like, this is the, you know, the, the inspection we're trying to complete and this is the ILI tool. I mean, I know it's great. And then you've got all the different there's a bunch of different ones now. Chris Yeah. It's a great marketing tool. You walk into operators offices and you see them on the wall. Yeah. 00;45;04;20 - 00;45;17;21 Chris Yet I've never seen both competitors that have it out there have them side by side. Like that would be really fun for an operator. Have them side by side. Do you have one for like have you done one for the composites? Yes you have. You have like a corrosion feature and then a crack feature. It's got the list of available. 00;45;17;21 - 00;45;36;20 Tim Exactly. That's awesome. With the asterisk that is depending on, you know, the sizing and operating conditions as we've been talking about. Rhett So so our audience you can email Mr. O'Malley if you would like to get that chart release for Sarah for us. So, her name, we never say her name. It's, All right, Tim, I want to thank you for joining us. 00;45;36;20 - 00;45;54;24 Rhett Thanks for coming on. This is actually a really good conversation, and I enjoyed it. To our audience, because of that, I'm going to get the hard press. Let me give you thanks for joining us on this edition of Pipeline Things. See you again in two weeks. Oh, that was like a Reese's I was awesome. This episode of Pipeline Things executive produced by Sarah Etier, hosted by myself and Christopher de Leon. 00;45;54;24 - 00;46;04;05 Rhett Special thanks to our guest Tim Mally from Hinkle, and also to the work well where we filmed this episode.