Currently, the Energy Pipelines Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) works with 15 research students, 15 research fellows and more than 20 academic staff. The researchers are aided and supported by dozens of enthusiastic industry advisors who give their time and resources to help progress the Energy Pipelines CRC’s research.
The Energy Pipelines CRC education activities help current members of the pipeline industry by addressing topical issues for the industry and providing usable information from leading edge research. The education activities also aim to help with the development of the next generation of pipeline professional through the development of research students and undergraduate students.
One way of ensuring that the researchers understand the requirements of the industry is to give them direct experience of pipeline operations in the field. We are fortunate to work with organisations that are happy to take the researchers to their offices and onsite and show them what happens routinely.
We are keen to get more of the researchers out working in the offices and onsite within the pipeline industry. This can be in design offices; on suppliers or pipeline owner sites; witnessing construction, hydrotesting coating or cathodic protection inspections; or taking part in maintenance programs.
If you can offer one or more researchers the opportunity to see something of the industry, I would be delighted to hear from you. Experience shows that both the researcher and the organisation benefit from the visit and you would be helping with the development of rounded, future pipeline industry employees.
For more information visit www.epcrc.com.au or contact Valerie Linton at {encode=”valerie.linton@epcrc.com.au” title=”valerie.linton@epcrc.com.au”}
EPCRC research awarded at premier international pipelines event
The Australian pipeline industry was showcased on the world stage in September 2012, with members of the Energy Pipelines Co-operative Research Group awarded runner-up for Best Paper at the International Pipeline Conference (IPC) held in Calgary, Canada.
Held every two years, the IPC is internationally renowned as one of the world’s premier pipeline conferences. The 2012 event featured a conference program including 13 technical tracks and 361 presented papers.
The IPC conference program attracts some of the most experienced and respected members in the pipeline community, and covers a wide range of topics. To recognise this expertise, a competition for the best paper is organised and awarded at each IPC event. In 2012, 38 papers were shortlisted for the Best Paper award.
The Australian industry, and in particular members of the Energy Pipeline Co-operative Research Centre (EPCRC), were bestowed with the respected position of runner-up for the award.
Australian authors Cheng Lu, Guillaume Michal, Alhoush Elshahomi and Ajit Godbole of the University of Wollongong, along with Phil Venton and Leigh Fletcher, teamed with international expertise in Kamal Botros of NOVA Chemicals and Brian Rothwell, to produce the runner-up paper.
Entitled Investigation of the effects of pipe wall roughness and pipe diameter on the decompression wave speed in natural gas pipelines, the paper discusses shock tube experiment results that demonstrate that decompression waves in pipe with a rough inner surface slow down relative to that in a smooth pipe under comparable conditions.
As the paper abstract states: “A one-dimensional dynamic simulation model, named EPDECOM, was developed to investigate the effects of pipe wall roughness and pipe diameter on the decompression wave speed. Comparison with experimental results showed that the inclusion of frictional effects led to a better prediction than that of the widely used model implemented in GASDECOM.
“EPDECOM simulation results showed that the effect of roughness on the decompression wave speed is significant for pipe diameters less than 250 mm. However, the decompression wave speed is nearly independent of the roughness for diameters above 250 mm as the frictional effect becomes negligible at such diameters.”
The results discussed in the paper have been responsible for the avoidance of the need to conduct expensive full-scale fracture arrest tests. Instead, the research undertaken has led to a mathematical model that will enable a practical spectrum of designs to be validated.
The runner-up award recognises the trajectory of success for the EPCRC to achieve this recognition on a world-scale so early in its operating life, and marks an amazing achievement for the EPCRC researchers who, only a few years ago had no previous involvement in the paper subject.