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Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

(OP)
Prepakt has designed on request a nylon bag to act as a pipe wrapping weight on gas lines running through muskeg.

   The nylon bag will wrap around the pipe and consist of about 16 tubes 2" in diam 2ft long weighing about 55lb. The bags wrap around to distibute weight evenly and zip up. I need some advice or suggestions on how to fill these bags with sand. We are talking about one thousand bags per mile
of pipe. One every 5 ft.
 
  I am told we cannot use any other method or spacing.

 Suggestions please.

Intrusion Prepakt
www.marineconcrete.com

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

Go to McDonald's.  Look at the tool they use to put french fries in the bag/box/doohickey.  For use by manual labor, you'll probably end up with something similar.

Where do you fill the bags?  I mean, at the source of sand, or at the pipe, or somewhere in between?

Next step up:  Mix water with the sand, and fill the bags with a concrete pump, just like stuffing a sausage.

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

Foundries have sand handling equipment. Find one who is not busy and have them fill the bags on a nobake line. Have them shut off the nobake resin. Fill the bags and use a shaker table to compact the sand. This assumes you have a large volume of bags needing to be filled.

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

Sure, a foundry can do it, but then you have to truck all the filled bags to a dropoff point somewhere along the pipe, and  ...  slog through the muskeg with big bags of sand.

Frankly, it smells like a 'make-work' project, not too slyly designed to keep some disadvantaged population employed for a few months.

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

(OP)
Project is quite real .I tried to suggest other methods
like precast conc jackets in two pieces or increase the spans to more than 5' but was told not feasable as small dia poly line would bend or chaffe.Jackets will be made in Ohio and moved to Northern Alberta. We can fill them at any point and they have to weigh 55lbs. Nearer the job site of course would be better.

Intrusion Prepakt
www.marineconcrete.com

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

So you're running gas through poly pipe, and you have to ballast the pipe with sand ... to keep it from lifting in the wind?

Sounds like a good argument for metal pipe.

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

(OP)
Steel lines float quite well too Mike, even 36" dia pipe.Thats why they wrap them in concrete.

Intrusion Prepakt
www.marineconcrete.com

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

First question is where are the bags filled? On-site or elsewhere?

It would be nice if you could run a sister line that would accommodate a sand slurry and fill the bags on-site. (I am sure that the labor rates in the middle of nowhere in northern Alberta are low.) The sister line could be abandoned in place, filled with sand also, and lashed to the gas line.

Or better yet, if you could just run a larger line that was filled/pumped with water or slurry or cement or .... and lash the gas line to it, or run it inside of the other line....

Or, if you could fill the 16 2" tubes with water, you could possibly pump water through your gas line prior to commissioning and fill on-site. By using some tubing sizes that telescope inside of each other you wouldn't have to ship too much air. But low spots might be an issue. Or if the nylon tube is collapsible then on-site filling and cinch locking might work.

Or, you could look at one of the other posts.

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

How about outsourcing this to India.I have a foundry with lots of waste sand to dispose. I shall be glad to do it and ship it to any place. (I was kidding!!)

You can look for some foundry mechanization guy to give you a small pumping kit using positive air displacement.or visit a cement plant and have a look at their bagging machine.

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

If the problem is not well defined you cannot find a good solution for it. What are you hiding and why ?

The whole thing looks like a political joke.

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

I think that a lot of us have been secretly wondering that.... I am glad that someone had the courage to speak up after all this time.

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

Prepakt,
Let's see if I understand this product.
It sounds like 16 chambers about 2" diameter each, arranged next to each other sort of like looking at a package of hotdogs or sausages from the ends of the links.  Each package has a closure device on each end that forms the pack into a collar on the pipeline.
If this is correct then your biggest enemy is moisture.  If your sand is moist at all then filling the tubes is going to be a problem.  Secondly more moisture equals more shipping weight and it sounds like there is plenty wet to be found at the site.  You can use the slurry suggested earlier but will want to eliminate as much free water as possible.
How many of these do you need per day? Are these going to be installed winter or summer or both (Another wet/dry issue)?  
Sand can be of various screen sizes.  Does it need to be a specific size or can it include up to 25 mm solids?
  Griffy

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

(OP)
Sand size does not matter provided it fills the tubes .The intent was to do 100 miles or so and the spacing is now about 10' apart. The intention was to put the bags on the pipe and slide them down a chute attached to the pipe into the muskeg.Its an odd project but thats whats requested. I offered concrete weights etc but they need sand bags with the weight evenly distributed around the pipe to avoid chaffing.
  Thanks for the interest

Intrusion Prepakt
www.marineconcrete.com

RE: Automated sand filling of 2' dia 2ft long tubes

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