PipeLine Underground Trenchless Overhaul (PLUTO)

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Program:
REPAIR
Award:
$5,300,000
Location:
Fairfield, Connecticut
Status:
ACTIVE
Project Term:
02/18/2021 - 02/17/2024
Website:

Critical Need:

Legacy pipe malfunctions create operating risk and legal liability for utilities, negatively impact system owners’ financial performance, and are costly to gas consumers. Today, repairing legacy pipes involves excavating and replacing them, typically with high-density polyethylene pipe. Replacement costs range from $1-10 million per mile, depending on the pipe’s location (rural vs. urban), complexity of the excavation, and costs for restoring roads. Utilities also incur costs whenever gas service is disrupted for repairs. REPAIR seeks to eliminate the highest cost components, excavation and restoration, by rehabilitating pipes without their removal—in essence, by automatically constructing a new pipe within the old.

Project Innovation + Advantages:

General Electric (GE) Global Research will develop PipeLine Underground Trenchless Overhaul (PLUTO)—a long-distance, minimally invasive pipe repair system that provides structural rehabilitation of gas pipelines faster, more efficiently, and less expensively than traditional open-cut excavation replacement. The GE team, including Warren Environmental and Garver, will develop and integrate a highly dexterous long-range pipe-crawling (robotic) system, high-speed non-destructive evaluation technologies, and advanced spray-on thick-coating epoxy lining systems. The PLUTO system will provide efficient pipeline maintenance at ½ to 1/20th the cost of traditional open-trench methods, a key enabler to lower emissions by reducing pipeline transit loss and maintenance burdens.

Potential Impact:

If successful, GE’s PLUTO system would eliminate the highest pipe rehabilitation cost components, excavation and restoration, by repairing pipes without their removal.

Security:

REPAIR projects should improve the sustainability of domestic natural gas distribution by economically rehabilitating legacy pipes.

Environment:

REPAIR will produce 3D maps and data management/visualization tools that integrate geospatial data for leak testing, integrity/inspection data, coating deposition data, and locations of pipes and adjacent underground infrastructure.

Economy:

REPAIR program innovations will accelerate legacy pipeline replacement while reducing cost to utilities and gas customers.

Contact

ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. Jack Lewnard
Project Contact:
Dr. Todd Danko
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
todd.danko@ge.com

Related Projects

• Autonomic Materials - Autonomous Rehabilitation and Maintenance of Natural Gas Pipes
• Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) - Confined Space Mapping Module for In-Pipe Repair Robots
• General Electric (GE) Global Research - PipeLine Underground Trenchless Overhaul (PLUTO)
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) - Structural Materials-aided Advanced Renewal Technology for REPAIR (SMART REPAIR)
• ULC Technologies - Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing for New Pipeline Fabrication in Live, Natural Gas Distribution Mains
• University of Colorado, Boulder (CU-Boulder) - Testing and Analysis of Pipeline Encapsulation Technologies
• University of Delaware (UD) - TuFF Internal Wrap for Rapid Pipeline Repair (TuFF iWRAP)
• University of Maryland (UMD) - Pipe-in-Pipe by Rapid, Continuous, Smart Alloy Coating
• University of Pittsburgh - Innervated Pipelines: A New Technology Platform for In-Situ Repair and Embedded Intelligence
• White River Technologies - New and Innovative 3D Mapping Technology to Enable Rehabilitation of Natural Gas Pipe Infrastructure

Release Date:
02/18/2020