Pin hole leak in H2 pipe. How to repair?
Pin hole leak in H2 pipe. How to repair?
(OP)
I have a pin hole leak in a hydrogen pipe. The pipe passed near a HCL tank and has corroded. The pipe is 1" steel and the H2 is pressurised to 60psi. I want to make a temporay repair to this pipe and was looking for some ideas from engineers that may have had similar experiences in this type of repair situation. Needles to say this will only be temporay measure while we plan and schedule replacement of old pipe and re-routing.





RE: Pin hole leak in H2 pipe. How to repair?
RE: Pin hole leak in H2 pipe. How to repair?
RE: Pin hole leak in H2 pipe. How to repair?
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
www.muleshoe-eng.com
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.
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RE: Pin hole leak in H2 pipe. How to repair?
Here is what’s available.
http
http://www.jerman.com/pipeclamps.html
RE: Pin hole leak in H2 pipe. How to repair?
www.indumar.com
RE: Pin hole leak in H2 pipe. How to repair?
Here is site that discusses the problem in general way. We use both the analytical method and the He Mass Spectrophotometer approach to our system.
http://www.delta-f.com/AppNotes/apnote6.htm
RE: Pin hole leak in H2 pipe. How to repair?
Better still is to also have a small steel plate on top of the pad so it applies greater force on the rubber (the pressure in rubber must be greater than pressure of h2 trying to escape)
Ideally the clip buckle must be on the pad too (If its at the opposite side of pipe then a lot of the tension in the clip gets lost in overcoming friction with the pipe wall - - this phenomena is more significant at larger pipe diameters)
If it looks too "temporary" then wrap the whole lot in a couple of layers of GRP.
Cheers DW
RE: Pin hole leak in H2 pipe. How to repair?
When I said above that we clamp these things, I mean we use bolt together, sealant injected clamps of the type identified by unclesyd and zdas04 and installed by a professional repair service. H2 can leak very easy and burns invisibly (during the day anyway) which can creates a hazard not easily recognized to personnel working nearby. A do-it-yourself home water pipe style repair job is not a good idea. -sshep
RE: Pin hole leak in H2 pipe. How to repair?
I agree with sshep. The cheap way out may work, but why take a chance. Products that I have had great success with in the past are Plidco split sleave clamps (www.plidco.com) and clockspring (www.clockspring.com). Clockspring is a permanant repair in most applications. Plidco is not, (are wasn't in the past) but easy to install. Hope this helps.