Material for use in lining large-diameter pipes and a method of making same

Abstract

A material for use in lining large-diameter pipes is disclosed. A textile material formed to a tubular shape and impregnated with resin may, on curing the resin, repair a damaged pipe in a cure in place pipe (CIPP) rehabilitation process. The present invention provides both a novel structure of tubular material and a novel method of preparing the material for use in a CIPP rehabilitation process, specifically aimed at large-diameter pipes such as oil rig caissons. The tubular material of this invention comprises four sheets of a double-bed warp-knitted fabric (40). A first pair of sheets (52) are arranged to form, respectively, inside and outside surfaces of a first half-tube, with fabric machine direction extending along the length of the half-tube. The second pair of sheets (52a) are similarly arranged to form a second half-tube. The two half-tubes are connected at a pair of longitudinally extending joins (58, 60). The preparation process includes stabilising tensioned sheets with a mesh layer (44), which makes for better handling of the knitted fabric.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.