High-Rate Manufacturing of Corrosion Resistant Composite Piping for Water-Energy Infrastructure Resilience

The work focuses on rapid and cost-efficient manufacturing of composite piping for hydropower, waste-water infrastructure and data center thermal management offering extended service life and minimal inspection-maintenance requirement under corrosive and high temperature environment. The effort leverages Ultraviolet (UV) assisted filament winding to enable high-rate manufacturing of pipelines with reduced consumables, production cost and minimal volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions.

Pipelines play a key role in water-energy infrastructure including penstock, transmission/distribution, wastewater treatment, brine outfall, and cooling network. A medium sized hydro-power plant accounts for up to $9.5 billion in pipeline installation, while regular inspection and maintenance cost reaching $47.06/MWh, higher than other energy sources. The EPA's 2008 CWNS reported a budget of $83 billion for pipe repair and new pipes from a total of $298 billion project. Corrosion of metal pipes causes scaling and leakages, requiring additional cost for separate coating, lining or cathodic protection. Corrosion-related degradation of metallic and concrete infrastructure imposes an estimated annual economic burden of $276 billion on the U.S. economy. In data center pipeline, blockage or leakage risks overheating and data loss, while condensation on metal pipes lead to dripping issues. Thermoplastic pipes (polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or high density polyethylene (HDPE)) offer corrosion resistance but suffer from embrittlement, cracking, and UV degradation. Though HDPE pipes perform better than PVC pipes, manufacturing larger-diameter pipes is challenging causing sagging and variable wall thickness. In contrast, thermosetting composites pipes offer energy efficient processing, higher strength to weight, durability, low maintenance cost, and smoother internal surfaces maximizing flow. However, these pipes face challenges during processing, e.g. limiting processing window, waste generation, high consumables, slow curing and toxic emissions (styrene).

We propose high-rate manufacturing of fiber reinforced composite piping featuring out-of-autoclave cure by integrating latent UV curing. UV curing technology improves thermoset composite manufacturing by enabling curing in minutes rather than hours needed for conventional thermal processes. Rapid room-temperature curing significantly increases production throughput, reduces energy consumption and manufacturing costs, while enhancing supply-chain resiliency through decentralized and on-demand fabrication. UV cure reduces waste generation and consumables by allowing easy recovery and cleaning of unused resin. During pipeline installation, UV snap cure further improves joining efficiency and reliability. This approach involves the development of UV assisted filament wound composite pipe manufacturing, and field deployment through innovations in UV cure resin chemistry, formulation development, process design, in-line inspection and validation, pipe joining strategy and quality assurance and building domestic supply chain resiliency. ORNL will leverage its expertise in UV cure systems, previously demonstrated for unsupported direct ink write 3D printing, as a foundation for the proposed UV cure adaptation to filament wound technology. The effort also builds on the styrene free new UV cure resin chemistry pioneered by our industry partner, Allnex, USA, minimizing health risks and environmental impact. Success Measure will be based on: Enhanced Cured Depth above 10 mm; Accelerated Curing in less than 2 minutes to enable continuous production; Establish Process Validation verified by in-line NDE analysis; Rapid and Reliable Pipe Joining within 5 min that withstands pressure >200 psi with no leakage; Establish Domestic Supply Chain connecting at least one industry pilot partner from each demonstration site (hydropower, wastewater and data center cooling).