Window Cut in a Crude Oil Pipe Line

Would a small round hole with a video camera or sight glass not only be easier but preserve the pipe's integrity as well?

A square hole? Seems to me stresses on the pipe could lead to cracking at the corners. Round is always better where holes are concerned. What's wrong with using a camera or a sight glass?

I'm sure you've got good reasons for this and I'm not questioning that, but I'm naturally curious as this seems kind of drastic.

Thanks for this input which could efficiently avoid craking in the 4 corners. A rounded square might be the optimum. The objective is not to see in the pipe, but to inject an electromagnetic field of a very high density to change the viscosity of the crude

Ah. Thanks for this detail. A 'window' being something people look through, visually, but into a pipe full of crude? Well, that was a wee bit puzzling.

So, what you're talking about is a port or portal, transparent to magnetic fields? Does this device protrude into the flow or does just the field through some kind of non-ferrous material? Is it a static field, so that you can use a metal 'window' (no induced currents). What's the field strength? You've a buttload of ferrous metal around that thing which will shunt the field so does thing protrude into the flow? Just curious. Very. Forgive me, please. I find this fascinating.

Oh, and Tornado's suggestion (below) about reinforcing the hole's perimeter is spot on. Rounded corners and perimeter reinforcement to ensure pipe integrity.

As far as actually cutting the hole itself, I defer to the experts in this area.

A port or portal might be a better definition you are right. The electromagnetic field will cross the section of the pipe exposing each crude molecule passing through to create its own heat

So this is an RF field, not just magnetic, and in the microwave realm? Dielectric heating (the principle behind microwave ovens. Not resonance of water molecules, which require a field impractically in the THz region, but dielectric heating)?

So basically, you're building a microwave oven for crude oil? What's your window material? Beryllia ceramic? Fused silica? Pyrex? (certain glasses will melt due to thermal runaway, so you've gotta be careful in your choice of certain glasses, if that's what you're using, but a slab of Pyrex is okay - at least at 2450 MHz!). And the window has to be squarish because it's at the end of a waveguide? The large size suggesting a fairly low microwave frequency, or it's a cavity and at a higher frequency. Sure sounds like you're bolting a microwave oven to this sucker.

Very interesting!

We are building a very special type of microwave oven, dedicated to heavy crude dielectric heating. The port or portal will be in fused quartz

Fair enough. That thing is gonna be cranking some power to heat a large, moving bolus of crude. Given that your pipe has 1" walls, I expect that's a shitload of crude.

I reckon that pipe is insulated and that you're putting these ports in at intervals? Just curious but what of the turbulence created by the ports? Is the window conformal to the pipe's radius, or are the energy losses due to turbulence insignificant compared to the gains from lowered viscosity? I expect so but, like I said, I'm very curious and I apologise that my curiosity has drifted so far off-topic.

Your application is quite interesting. Thanks for your time.

We are talking about 750'000 barrels per day. Yes, ports are at intervals and flow is somehow turbulent against the internal side of the pipe and laminar in the center. Fused quartz conformal to pipe radius. There are heat losses due external temperature which is lower than crude one. We will compensate those losses by more stations along the pipe, at various distances, one to another.

One last thing: you may wish to consider using a round waveguide and port. Microwaves don't mind round as long as the waveguide is properly sized. I reckon you're using an off-the-shelf magnetron or klystron for your RF source? Whatever shape they're using for their waveguide dictates the shape of your window? There are shape-changing waveguide adapters; square/rectangular/oval-to-round, etc. I would strongly recommend using a round port in this particular application, to better preserve pipe integrity. All that energy will make it into the oil in any case (well, most of it - there will be minor losses in the inner surface of the pipe itself but these will contribute to heating the crude, as well) and you will have nodes where the oil does not heat in any case regardless of the shape of the feedpoint. All else being equal, I'd stick to round.

Oxyacetylene torch. As noted, round is best; a 6√2 radius would circumscribe a square foot. A reinforcement pad would be desirable, and probably necessary. How do you propose to install/seal the window?

Thanks Tornado for your input. We do not know yet how to seal and with what material to seal. All we know so far is that internal pressure can be up to 5 bars

You might also benefit greatly from talking to the folks wot manufacture big pressure vessels. They've been doing this sort of thing for years. They might even contract to do it for you for a price. You don't want to risk an oil spill. They're VERY expensive. Cite this fact when securing funds.

So what are you hoping to gain by using RF heating of the crude Vs a simple electrical heating element or fuel fired heat exchanger based system?

At 750,000 bbls a day how much of a temperature difference are you needing and how much power or you expecting to use?

My rough math says you will be needing a huge amount of electrical energy to do any serious level of heating.

To tcmtech, thanks for your comments. We will use mw heating, not RF. The gain is in the yield between our source and the heavy crude. Resistance heating warms up the pipe steel and the surrounding birds, but very little oil. Fuel fired heat exchangers are not economical either. Temp increase will vary from one station to another (to compensate heat losses along the length) and will depend on mechanical characteristics of the incoming product at well head. We expect to use 40 to 60 MW.

I'm a little confused on this one.

Resistance heating will warm the oil, the oil will warm the pipe and the pipe will warm the surrounding birds.

Microwave heating will warm the oil, the oil will warm the pipe and the pipe will warm the surrounding birds.

My wild guess is that electrical energy to thermal energy in the oil would be more efficient with resistance heating than with RF. The heat generated by your electrical components will be outside the window. What makes the RF the better choice?

I tend to agree, it sounds like an inefficient method of heating and if your flow stops for some reason you might have flash vaporization.

If you asked me to heat fluid in a pipe I might set a section of larger diameter pipe with a heating element inside. I would place it at a pumping station and use waste heat from the generators and pumps and perhaps add a bit of extra heat with whatever the cheapest source was at the location. If I needed extra heat between booster pump stations I would just build a heating station using available fuel or energy at the station.

Drew K

sensors cut the mw emission if there no oil coming

no chance to install a resistance in the oil, they are in spirals around the pipe today

Bruce, reistance is outside the pipe line today, so it does warm up the crude on a few mm only by conduction

Well, microwaves are considered RF and called that in a great deal of the literature, all the way to deep-IR, in fact.

Those electromagnetic-spectrum charts you see delineate different parts of the EM spectrum into different divisions and their headings, U/SLF through Gamma Rays, but these divisions and their names are completely arbitrary in every sense of the word. I worked on the design of the Submillimeter Array located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, built to search for brown dwarf stars. A radio telescope operating at 980 GHz - microwaves at a frequency so high it borders on the infrared, but the array is still considered a *radio* telescope. Microwaves are RF. No distinction between the two is necessary.

Question: How much pipe insulation could you buy for the price of 40 to 60 megawatts of power consumed 24/7/365?

Also, aren't your energy losses due to viscous drag primarily confined to the pipe perimeter? If you've laminar flow in the center why are you heating the whole shebang when the laminar flow isn't where you're losing motional energy? Why not put the heat where you need it and not where you don't, and insulate the pipe with money you'll save and use resistance heaters? Heating the whole damn thing doesn't make much sense quite honestly. Sure, you're gonna have mixing and losses to laminar region, so that's where you put in another resistance heater - to heat the perimeter-flow only. 40 to 60 MW. Hell, it's no damn wonder our petrol costs are going up.

Well put.

To the OP.

Might some form of simple insulation (oil is usually warm when it leaves the earth I believe), not work over many years cheaper than such units? Far less maintenance....cheaper insurance? No breaches needed in the pipeline?.....

Heating up with no thought to insulation to retain that heat appears to be thoughtless.....and not green (though "green" and crude oil together are almost a conundrum in themselves...)

Even one simple leak from a single such crazy breach as you propose might cost millions$$$ to clean up, not forgetting that any insurance cover needed might increase running costs out of all proportion to the possible gains....have you asked for a quote for insurance for such a pipeline? Important point!!

Has it even been proved that RF heating works well/efficiently on crude in a steel pipe? Please show testing results already obtained. Steel and RF???

I've never personally heard of it being used on pipelines as you propose (single units deep in shale fields have been proposed, but not fully proven as yet and the effects work also on the shale itself seemingly), so please post some links showing exactly how it works in a steel pipeline at the frequencies you propose.....

I would have thought that automatic steam injection, with boilers every 1000 meters, fueled by crude oil might be more efficient!!....and cheaper with a FAR smaller "breach"!! Tiny in fact!! Plus good insulation of course.....

Furthermore, cutting/welding on oil pipelines has had some very serious side effects, not fully understood is a cure.

Therefore may I draw your attention to the following Engineering Failure Analysis "Failure analysis of a crude oil pipeline weld/cut failure" :-

Failure analysis of a crude oil pipeline after welding/cutting of pipe

Have you given such possible accident scenarios some thought to prevent any further such accidents? Every single breach you make could be a possible break/leaking point.......

I personally do not believe that ANY reputable company will allow such breaches without a massive increase in insurance premiums....probably making the whole idea on a practical level useless.....

You need to do your homework on such points before wasting you time and money......

Thanks Andy, insurance premiums are under investigation, but the additional gain our technology brings to the crude oil player largely compensates

So, this is a product looking for a market.

Fess up!

This is silly..... you would not want to put this device anywhere on the system.

Put the heating device on a smaller, valved bypass line around a pumping station. (From the pump discharge piping to the pump suction piping)

You will always have a controlled differential pressure to adjust heat input into the fluid. Pressure and temperature detection devices (which I assume you will need) can be placed on the bypass

With a valved bypass, you will also always be able to take the device out of service.

Please tell us temperatures, pressures pipe diameters and flowrates.

A junior hacksaw is out, Agnes.

I want to see this in action!

40 - 60 Megawatts of RF energy being shot into a 1 foot diameter pipeline within a foot of travel!

Lets see here....... A very large RF heating (magnetron based) will have at best about 80 85% system efficiency where as a submerged electric heating element will have about !00% energy transfer plus be a about 100 times simpler and cheaper to design build and maintain.

Just not seeing the justification here.

BTW my rough math suggests that 50 MWH of heating capacity will raise about 65 gallons of crude oil 100 degrees F per second!

The OP asked about cutting a 1 ft square hole (as opposed to a 1 sq. ft. hole) in a pipe having 1"-thick walls. Nowhere does the OP state the pipe diameter, but does say later that the flow rate is 750K bbl/day at a pressure up to 5 bar. From that figure one can assume the pipe diameter is *considerably* larger than one foot, not to mention the obvious problem of cutting a 1 foot square hole in a pipe whose ID is only ten inches.

The OP says, moreover, that there are multiple ports, spaced periodically along the pipe and cites this figure as the total power, not the power per port. 60 MW would result in an explosion the instant it was applied. There would be no oil within milliseconds as this power level if applied at one point as you say, would completely disassociate the oil into a hot plasma and the transmitter would be destroyed instantly from the reflected power.

There is sooooo much about this scheme that is unknown and, to me unworkable, unproven, unfeasible and downright silly.

I'm waiting for the OP to exhibit a feasible, well defined form of energy for this use and how he proposes to produce it efficiently enough to heat that much tar sand.

The OP's apparent surprise that cracks can form at the corners of square holes was in and of itself greatly alarming, given the thing in which this hole is made. So what ELSE doesn't the OP know about preventing a major oil spill due to considerable and obvious inexperience? And who is letting an inexperienced person like this come with a mile of a major oil pipeline?

***750,000 bbl/day on the ground.*** More than anything else, that is what is coming through all this loud and clear. This sounds to me like an environmental disaster waiting to happen. The guy didn't know about stress cracks from square corners - and I'm not even a mech engr.

Somethin' tells me this guy ain't in the "awl bidness".

I thunk th' same thang, but neither is somuone in the 'awl bidness' mindin' the store, evidently. That's the scary part.

Sorry I mis wrote it. I have a 5 year old who can be a bit of a distracting presence sometimes when I am online. (I absolutely had to look at her kitty, again.)

40 - 60 Megawatts of RF energy being shot into a 1 foot diameter pipeline within a foot of travel! It should have read,

40 - 60 megawatts of RF energy shot through a one foot diameter hole in a pipeline as a fluid moves past!

Hey you try doing math while having to watch a 5 year old torment her cat and see how grammatically and or factually correct your sentences are!

Hell, I do that without distractions! Little kids are great. I've got four kids. Three have flown the coop and one is a 12-year-old going on 21.

Enjoy these years with your little one. They're over in a flash.

This is probably about a 48" pipeline...You probably can't put anything in the pipe because of pigs running the length of pipe for maintenance...

This sounds like a viable non-intrusive method of improving flow to me....What about a staggered deployment of the microwave window locations, or flipping from one side to the other....It's an interesting tech app to ponder, what is the best pattern and angle of mw beam deployment? I know there are various applications of rf high and low used at the well for adding viscosity to thick compositions of crude, but have not seen this use anywhere....

Perhaps but at some points along the way boosting pumps have to be located and the pipe pigs have to be able to bypass them!

Personally if it was me I would be using simple direct pipe heating via embedded electric heating units in the pipe wall itself.

Given the continuous flow plus the fact that the fluid is staying fairly laminar as it moves along the pipe just heating the outer fluid that is in contact with the pipe wall should be more than sufficient to reduce it's viscosity without having to heat all the fluid.

Granted an estimated pressure of 5 bars or less seems pretty low for a 1 inch thick pipe carrying crude!

From my experience on refined product pipelines you can bypass the pump stations with a pig while others have a pig trap so you can truck away the junk the pig is pushing before sending it on past the booster station.

The same thing could be done with heating stations.

I get the feeling the OP is reinventing something that is already working. I am all for upgrading things, as long as the new idea works and does not make too much extra work for the operators / mechanics.

Drew K

Thing is, OP said the pipeline is *already heated* by a spiral (presumably resistance-heater) wrap on the outside of the pipe which presently - citing the OP - "heats the air and the birds."

So this is a different method of heating the oil but, as another poster pointed out, will still "heat the air and the birds."

The heater doesn't have to be inside the pipe at all. It can be outside the pipe (and already IS, evidently) in thermal contact with the pipe, the pipe AND heater insulated to keep the heat where it belongs.

This problem has been tackled before, many times. The oil in the Alaskan Pipeline is heated and the pipeline elevated to prevent thawing the permafrost. The most shocking aspect about that pipeline is the unprecedented use of insulation to keep the heat in.

Will wonders never cease.

I thought that the Alaska Pipeline was heated by the pump energy, rather than by external heat sources. That could be mistaken, though. Also, doesn't oil emerge hot anyway?

1" thick at only 5 bar suggests a huge diameter, like over 30 feet. Some numbers don't compute here.

I said it was heated, not how; the point being not the source of heat but the use of insulation. Evidently the OP hasn't considered it even though he is aware of heat loss.

My honest opinion? I think someone has sold someone a bill of goods and now are trying to figure out how to pull it off. Just my gut feel.

Sure hope they're planning to shut the light off when these porkies float by, for their sakes' and the transmitters. No damage to the passive pigs but the power could be reflected back into the waveguides, causing arcing which could destroy the klystrons.

For the instrumented pigs that power level will raise holy hell. These pigs are packed with NDI sensors and/or pipe-curvature sensors and associated electronics. They're not cheap and they, too, can reflect power back into the waveguide and fry the transmitter.

That pipe in your pic sure looks leaky.

Is this a solution looking for a problem? Or rather, a product looking for a market?

Have you seriously looked at the energy required to heat 31.5 million gallons of oil a day, even a few degrees?

You might be better off using friction heating. Or inefficient pumps.

Do you really have a customer for this?

Yes, I'm skeptical. And dubious.

Are we talking Canadian tar sands?

How about some detail.

Is the pipeline you want to penetrate in service or is it under construction?

under construction

Cutting a hole in a pipeline, especially one of 1" wall thickness and larger diameters is NOT something that you just throw a torch to "Willie Welder" and tell him to get it done. Nothing addressed to anyone in particular but one slight mistake on the layout or cutting can change this operation from a "simple" task to that of a gigantic screw up requiring the cut out of a section of pipe and replacement with identical pipe by more than a welder. The hardest part of a project like this is the lay-out and not the actual welding. That requires a very skilled person with extensive experience not only in welding but also geometry, mathematics, trigonometry, ergonomics, rod selection, and several other skills. A lot of welders are good welders but only a few are great lay-out pipefitters/welders If they have reached out and learned a lot more they are able to do more than just lay a line of rod.

There are also very few "wrap-a-rounds" available to make this task easy or simply scribing a premeasured line.

Good Luck, Old Salt

Absolutely, and his chances of finding someone with *verifiable* qualifications is 100% if he consults with the pipeline builder directly rather than tossing his question to an engineering forum on whose word he must take its members' qualifications.

If Selles were proposing to do a heart transplant, would you be willing to go under his knife when he got his guidance from some online forum somewhere? I wouldn't.

Yes, agreed, but not absolutely. If he goes to a pipeline builder with verifiable and good experience in this type of fitting he will get what is probably an extremely good solution, but not always 100%, to his question. Constructing a 42" line is very different than a 10" line.

Fully agree that this is not anything but a poor forum to ask such a question. As I have always said--"It is the OP's responsibility to find the best answer. Any answerer could be the best in that field or some wise a_ _ just looking for some personal fun by leading someone astray."

No, I wouldn't let someone such as the OP do a by-pass, let alone a transplant on me. When I needed that I was fortunate enough to have a Dr. who was able to persuade the best surgeon in the state to do the knife work. I have since determined that to get a referral for an excellent dr., ask another excellent dr. The same with engineering!

Good Luck, Old Salt

This is not a 10" pipeline but one 'under construction' and being built to handle 750,000 bbl/day, according the OP. That capacity, by the way, is the *maximum* capacity of the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline, so the OP is talking about a BIG pipe.

My suspicion, quite honestly, is that the OP is not working with the pipeline contractor at all and that they don't know of him nor his plans. That is why he is here, asking us because he has no pipeline contractor to ask, else why is he here and why is he willing to take our word for it? On the on hand he's proposing a major, unproven engineering project and, on the other, asking about cutting square holes in pipes without even being aware of the risks, cracks developing at sharp corners and such.

If this really were a bonafide pipeline engineering project, he'd be working with the builder's engineers in all related aspects and wouldn't *need* to be here asking us! Those experts would be assigned to the project as well and it would be their job to tackle the job of cutting holes in pipes whilst he worked developing the microwave end of things.

What I suspect is that the OP has concocted this on his own and doesn't quite know what he's doing. His 'Silicium' thread strongly suggests this as well. You might want to check it out.

It's admirable, I think, that the OP might be working on an invention he hopes to propose to the pipeline companies, but he's not leveling with us in the non-proprietary aspects of this project of his, and I and others find that to be a problem.

Perhaps I am not being clear in my basis for the posting. I completely agree that this whole thing is way over the head of the OP and probably would lead him to "drowning" if he continues on with the same path he is following. My reference to the 10" pipe was to "dramatize" the difference between the relative simplicity on a 10" pipe as compared to a 42" pipe. 10" is usually much harder to work on than a 3" which is harder than a 3/4". I am somewhat familiar about 42" gas line at 1,000psi, but certainly nowhere close to stating that I am knowledgeable about them. Enough to stay away from them! There are some technical procedures that have been stated/suggested that I would rate as impossible, foolish and leading to a sudden death but won't go into those.

I am not discounting anything that has been said except for one thing. This conception that it is a simple task to have a pipe line crew just go in and install it, especially if it is other than strictly horizontal and plum alignment is very untrue. It certainly is not a wham bam thank you ma'am procedure. Its one thing to fit one length of pipe to another at somewhat of an angle but it is much more difficult to fit this type of arrangement than some have made it to appear. Does someone want it done or done right? There are a lot more pipe line welders than there are pipe line pipe fitters. The fitters for complex assemblies are few and far between.

I in no way advocate that the OP continue doing anything about this system except paying a good pipeline design group to do it right! For example in my first post I answered his post directly and clearly: how it is done and don't do it yourself!

Good Luck, Old Salt

I'd say where on the same page, but not-so-simply arrived here from different directions.

Just call me Mr. Smart A$$.

I ran across this the other day:

Trans-Alaska Pipeline System - Wikipedia, the free ...

In 2008, the pipeline carried approximately 700 thousand barrels per day (110,000 m³/d),^[131] less than its theoretical maximum capacity of 2.14 million barrels per day (340,000 m³/d)^[132] or its actual maximum of 2.03 million barrels per day (323,000 m³/d) in 1988.^[133]

You're absolutely right of course. My info came from a government-issued pdf.

As I sit here in my comfortable chair: in front of a desk with its foot warmer under it in case a cool night should come around in this spring weather; in front of a large and bright monitor; with some music gently floating into my ears; a belly full of delicious food cooked on a grill; having finished working on the lawn for the day; contemplating whether I should watch some boob tube or see what's up on CR4 concerning this pipeline cutting thing; and numerous other "hardship" things I contemplate what could have been……..

As the young kid just out of education having met a really good prof. who had the ideal job lead and offer for me. He had a personal friend that wanted to hire me sight unseen which I now know why! There I would be the self developed expert in pipeline locating since I would have been one of the first surveying crew to "go north"! Me, a few other guys and, probably that is, our Wild T2 Theodolites, subtense bars (GPS wasn't even in dreams then), Trig tables (no pocket calculators then), Tangent tables to the enth decimal for the subtense bar, a pistol, a bear rifle, some food carried on our backs, lots of thermal clothes and maybe some transportation which could be a snow cat or even a dog sled. My how I missed the adventurous parts of engineering!

My how I now miss those days of youth, energy and opportunities! Now a day of roughing it is cooking fried bologna on the grill!

Good Luck, Old Salt

:)

I'm with you on that. To my ex, "roughing it" meant "a motel without an ice machine."

Agree there. Greenfield site surveys are great. Paid to engage in adventure tourism....

Those adventure tours in the Bush and around the coasts (not so much in the Outback) mean eternal vigilence in the part of the tourist, especially foreign tourists. Why?

Dropbears.

And no, Vegemite behind the ears and underarms no longer works, as the company who makes Vegemite is owned by a Seppo conglomerate.

Forks in the hair still work. Even (and perhaps especially) ones made in China. Something to do deburring problems.

Urinating on oneself whilst shouting obscenities in Strine still works and always has. The downside is you may attract bogans instead. I don't know which are worse.

Marmite is definitely out as dropbears will think you're in heat. Definitely out, unless you're a pommy with ulterior motives which we cannot discuss on so distinguished a forum.

Dropbears, in Oz, are a real danger and none of the purported repellants work..

Big danger to tourists are the small things that bite and walking backwards off cliffs while taking a photo/video.

Outback travel....extra water, extra fuel, more than one spare tire, spare fan belts, some hand tools, an axe, a shovel, extra ice and beer....all required.

Very poetic.

Torch, grinder with cutting disc, K-12 saw, or whatever suits you. The bigger problem is going to be keeping slag from the torch or metal and disc glue out of the pipe. If access is nearby, a man way or other suitable entrance, someone should go into the pipe and put a flame proof tarp in place to catch all litter. Also if the pipe is in use now, use all precautions to get all oil and oil vapors out prior to cutting.

A round hole in the pipe with an appropriate shaped adapter welled to the side should be used. One end would be contoured to fit the pipe and the other with a right angle flange surface around the outer edge. This will permit putting the apparatus in or taking it out. This would look like an over sized pipe, welded flange and a blind flange.

Since you are welding such a deep weld, critical pressures and flammable materials make sure a certified welder(s) with experience doing this type of work does the actual welding.

The critical parts of this are: keeping all scrap materials and junk out, cutting the shape into the pipe; making all welds; the flange on the sides being in an accurate plane; the gasket between the flanged surfaces; etc.

With this arrangement you will be able to put anything in the pipe as long as it fits through the access assembly and isn't longer than the inside diameter of the pipe line.

Good Luck, Old Salt

Thanks old salt, your input is precious as well

Once you cut through it should just keep itself warm....

Oxy acetylene torches are horribly inefficient. If a plasma torch is not available then either a Petrogen or oxy propane torch would probably be the cheapest and produce the cleanest cuts. Having done a rather extensive amount of heavy cutting with all of them I would try to arrange enough power to use the plasma. If it's a remote location the petrogen is probably the most practical. Pretty interesting discussion so far.

Thank you Sourdough, we will investigate this direction you indicate

No offense intended sourdough, your information is accurate.

Selles, your concern should not be the actual cutting. Pipeline maintenance companies do this all the time. You find a competent contractor, tell them the size and location of the place to cut and stand back. They will tell you what they need.

As to your project, have you considered instead of putting your device on the side of the pipe you could put a 90º bend in the pipe with a Y junction. Then place your device in a fitting on the straight section of the Y pointing upstream or downstream. This way your beam might have a longer distance to effect it's heating.

I still think it would be more efficient to heat with other methods, but I don't feel like running the numbers to calculate either one.

Drew K

Thanks Drew, but our beam as you name it can easily cover the 42 inch pipeline diameter

Why is it an inch thick?

Cannot answer, sorry

Prevents Nigerians from hot-tapping it?

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

To prevent Global Warming?

You may easily cover the 42 inch pipeline, but as I said, for ease of installation consider placing it at a lowercase 'y' junction where the device is pointing down the pipe but the flow bends at that point. This way you don't have to worry about cutting a hole in the side of the pipe. I just replaced a 16 inch section of pipe last year and the whole job cost less than $15k (u.s.). Your costs will be a bit higher due to larger heavier pipe but if you are in the pipeline business I know this is small change.

Drew K

John Galt asks: if Selles is surrounded by pipeline-construction experts who cut holes in pipelines every day, why is he here asking us and not them? If I had a question about my car's engine, would it make more sense for me to ask my mechanic or go to the florist next door and hope a customer walks in who knows something about engines?

Hot-tapping could do the job, but would yield only a circular hole. Crude oil and that pressure are no issue, but the pipe thickness, well should consult the local service providers only.

Fill the pipe with water first, the cut the hole..very carefully!

Yeah, and be ready to vent the steam!

Thanks Brich, our intention is to run the system with water during a certain amount of time before anything else. Your comment is valid, although it does not answer the initial question

Thank you for the feedback.... water will displace any hydrocarbons and stop any ignition from whatever way you decide to cut the pipe. Your initial question has been answered by many folk here.... gas torch, grinder, etc, etc.

Really, only you can decide once your risk assessments have been completed and H&S are happy with the procedure.

Ultimately the final decision is yours!

Sorry Brich, I did not understand the last part of your comment. You are right, filling the pipe with water before cutting seems very appropriate especially if we use a plasma torch

You don't need to fill the pipe with water. I watched my contractors cut out and weld in a replacement section of fuel pipe. We vented the pipe, cut the old out with torches then cleaned up the cut, welded in the new one.

They said it was easy because we were working close to the valves so clearing the pipe was easy. They said if it had been in the middle of a long run they would have cut a hole in the top of the pipe to be removed and let the gas burn (gas not liquid, the pipe must be drained) then cut a hole in the side or bottom, place a couple of bladders up stream and downstream, vent the area (or burn off gasses) and get to work.

Just contact a competent pipeline contractor, tell them what you want and let them do their job.

Drew K

None of this makes any sense now that I have had time to read up on things.

The Alaska pipeline is 48" in dia and 800 miles long and can carry up to 1.2 million bbls of crude a day using only 8 - 10 active pumping stations of which only a few have any level of active heating systems in them and none of them have a thermal equivalent to much over 2 megawatts.

One top of that the pipeline is made up of roughly 1/2" steel yet runs at pressures up to around 80 bar.

I'm calling BS on the whole thing.

To tcmtech, who said we were in Alaska under the conditions you describe?

Never said you were. You never said where you are either so I just used the Alaskan pipeline as a base reference point being its a large diameter steel pipeline that runs through a location that is well known for cold harsh seasonal temperatures.

So how exactly are you planning to get a nonpolar large molecular chain based fluid to heat up in the center of a large diameter flooded pipe with microwave energy anyway?

Is there some mystical frequency that we don't know about that makes heating nonpolar molecules in crude oil with microwaves at a distance of 1 - 2 feet or more efficient?

This sounds like a Joe-Fordham or kastrupsky miracle solution to save the world.

Ok Selles, quit dreaming and start explaining!

Lyn, no miracle there, just cutting edge technologies. The purpose of this forum was to obtain answers to the asked question, not to explain details of a technology and know-how which are not relevant to the question. Sorry to say that going further will require the signature of a NDA

So, you're developing a "cutting" edge technology but you're too damn cheap to hire a pipeline consultant to tell you how to cut the pipe?

Yep, Joe-Fordham all over again.

<un-subscribes, laughing>

I have to agree. See you on another less boring (pun intended!) blog....

To tcmtech, Heavy crude oil contains less than 5% water after separator, so the mix is dipolar to some extent if you bring the adequate electromagnetic density. Secondly, swimming ions are there as well. So, on top of dipolar effect you may add the ionic one. Concerning the frequency, we unfortunately cannot disclose it, sorry

You don't need to disclose the frequency as dielectric heating doesn't depend on molecular resonance for its operation. The fact that you can boil water AND cook bacon in a microwave oven attests to this. If you're depending on a particular microwave frequency to do the job, you're up shit creek as you cannot control the particular mix of the many kinds of hydrocarbons present in crude, and the frequency that works with one kind molecule most likely won't work with the others PLUS the ratio of each kind to the others is varying in real time. That's why it's called *crude* oil.

Can't disclose the frequency used for dielectric heating when just about any radio frquency between DC and daylight will work? This ain't no military radar, mate. Or is it?

Actually if you take the water out of food most of it does not cook worth a darn in a microwave oven.

Its not that it won't cook at all but for the energy being put into the system in microwave energy the heat being generated in the food is dismally small.

The power to run the magnetron will pull directly from the aether with the proper coils...I.E. "free energy" (don't you see?)

Just a simple, on-topic question:

How is it that you are working with an oil pipeline but are here asking us how to cut a hole in that pipeline when the people who build such pipelines do this sort of thing every day? Why are you here, asking us, instead of there, asking them?

I think that's a fair question

They're the prime suspects from whom he must keep the secrets?

Some interesting history from 2008:

Fusion of Silicium

Cynics Anonymous

From Fusion of Silicium (sic) "... using a new form of microwaves ..." (emphasis mine)

Nature already has dibs on all the New Forms of Microwaves, unless it's ovens you're talking about.

I do wish you would answer europium's post #73, by the way - and "I can't disclose the reason" won't do this time, I'm afraid.

Theophilus, nature ans science are two diffrent words and worlds. We are talking about a new form of microwaving

No their not. Science is based entirely on the understandings of how nature works.

Nature has certain apparent laws, limits or rules as we see them and that what science is established on.

No one here is saying th using microwaves wont heat crude oil to some degree. What they are saying is that compared to common conduction or other physical contact based heating systems the derive their energy from either electrical or direct combustion of fuel the efficiency is going to be terrible while the design construction and operating cost will be high.

What we are going at is that so far you have not put out single words worth of information relating to the simple matter of what X amount of heat will be made with Y amount of input energy for Z amount of cost per unit of measure and how that compares to present heating methods.

Europium mkII, we do not face a simple question, even for them, because of the portal and sealing we will have to fix on this complex non straight cut to prevent any leakage, taking the pressure and type of crude which will have an effect on the fused quartz, into account. This explains why we ask it here