IBP2513_17

FUSION BONDED JOINT: AN INNOVATIVE

TECHNOLOGY FOR COST EFFICIENT PLASTIC-
LINED PIPE INSTALLATION AND OPERATION –
OVERVIEW OF THE QUALIFICATION CAMPAIGN
François LIROLA1

Copyright 2017, Brazilian Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels Institute - IBP

This Technical Paper was prepared for presentation at the Rio Pipeline Conference & Exhibition 2017, held between
October, 24-26, 2017, in Rio de Janeiro. This Technical Paper was selected for presentation by the Technical Committee of the event.
The material as it is presented, does not necessarily represent Brazilian Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels Institute’ opinion or that of its
Members or Representatives. Authors consent to the publication of this Technical Paper in the Rio Pipeline Conference &
Exhibition 2017.

Abstract
In deepwater, corrosion protection of flowlines is becoming a major issue as fluid (production or injection)
aggressiveness, temperature and pressure increase. Conventional corrosion allowance of carbon steel flowlines leads to
excessive procurement costs, installation weight and welding thickness resulting in costly solutions. Clad flowlines
present excellent corrosion protection, but the implementation of this technology results in rather expensive solutions
with additional NDT difficulties during installation.
An interesting alternative to achieve an acceptable corrosion protection is the use of plastic liners. However,
plastic lining has been mostly limited up to now to reel lay. Transposing as such this technology to J-lay results in a
complex quad joint design inducing more welding and NDT difficulties at every offshore joint. An innovative and cost
effective field-joint system has thus been developed and patented: the Fusion Bonded Joint (FBJ). This system
maintains the corrosion barrier across girth weld locations along the flowline. This technology has minimal impact on
the offshore laying rate due to performing standard steel to steel welds. In addition, it is based on field proven
technologies and methods that are commonly employed in gas transportation networks.
This paper presents the characteristics of the FBJ system and discusses its design, fabrication and the results of
the extensive qualification that has been carried out. A global overview of the testing campaign will be provided from
the early stages of the development to the full scale testing of the technology in an environment representative of its
actual operating conditions. Topics discussed will include: prototyping of the system and associated tools, qualification
of the electro-fusion welding process as well as its control and qualification of the carbon steel welding process. The
main challenges and outcomes of tests performed will be presented and discussed. A specific focus on the specificities
of the fatigue testing campaign will be presented including specific fatigue string design as well as fatigue performance
of plastic electro-fusion weld.

1. Introduction
Corrosion protection is a key issue for both production and water injection pipelines. Several technical
solutions have already been developed and used for internal corrosion protection of carbon steel flowlines as
summarized by BAKER et al. (2003). The most common one, corrosion allowance, consists in an extra steel layer on
the inner face of the pipes, usually ranging from 3 to 10 mm. Although this method is rather straightforward from a
fabrication standpoint, it also leads to longer offshore welding time, larger steel quantities, and thus higher steel
procurement cost, and finally to heavier flowlines. This latter point may become a showstopper as water depth
increases.
Entire internal cladding or overlay using corrosion resistant alloys such as Inconel is another solution, well
adapted to highly corrosive fluids but time-consuming and expensive as far as pipe fabrication in concerned. Also,
offshore welding and weld inspection is much more complex than for carbon steel.
The last group of solutions have the common feature of using internal plastic liners as a means to protect
carbon steel from liquid and gases flowing in the line. Plastic lining has already been applied to reel lay or J lay (double
or quad joints), for water injection and production as detailed by BAKER et al. (2003). For reel lay, sections of
hundreds of meters of liner are inserted in the flowline, which requires a long onshore spool base. For J lay, the plastic
liner is inserted in the joint assembly (quad joints for instance) using a rather simple method that can be applied at
almost any yard, thus opening opportunities for local fabrication. In both cases, a specific field joint must be inserted in
the plastic liner at weld locations to avoid plastic liner damage and maintain the corrosion barrier. Several concepts

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1
Master of Science, Riser Engineering Lead - SAIPEM
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have already been developed and even installed for some of them. However, most of them make use of Inconel for the
internal locking ring needed to maintain the field joint in position and for cladding of carbon steel pipe ends. Therefore,
such field joints are quite expensive to procure and require specific welding and non-destructive testing (NDT)
procedures, which limit their use to reel lay, where only a few field joints are needed along the entire flowline.
Over the past years, a cost effective concept of field joint to be used with plastic lined flowlines, the Fusion
Bonded Joint (FBJ), tailored to J-lay installation has been developed and qualified. This concept is presented by
LIROLA et al. (2013) along with the corresponding qualification program. The present paper highlights the
characteristics of the FBJ system, a passive corrosion protection system for a water injection line, and discusses its
design, fabrication and the results of the qualification that were carried out. The tests performed address: electro-fusion
welding qualification, NDT of plastic welds, qualification of the carbon steel welds and fatigue testing of both carbon
steel and plastic welds. The main challenges and outcomes of tests performed will be presented and discussed. An
overview of the outcomes of the mechanical testing campaign and fatigue testing campaign will be presented including
a specific fatigue string design as well as fatigue performance of plastic electro-fusion weld.

2. Requirements of the technology

The FBJ technology was developed with the ultimate goal of achieving a reliable and cost effective field-
jointing solution for plastic lined flowlines and risers. In this respect, the following design principles were followed:
 Excellent sealing has to be guaranteed to ensure the extension of the corrosion protection across weld
locations;
 The FBJ sleeve is designed so that it has no impact on flow assurance and allows safe operation of a pig;
 Operations related to FBJ insertion and welding has to have a limited impact on conventional J-lay operations;
 Carbon steel to carbon steel weld is used to allow for conventional offshore welding and NDT techniques.
 The technology also has to incorporate adequate plastic lining methods for both straight line sections and
bends.

Although the FBJ technology is currently being developed for plastic lined water injection flowlines, it is
planned to extend its use to production flowlines and risers. The content of this paper is limited to the water injection
application.

3. Overview of the Fusion Bonded Joint technology

The main component of the FBJ technology is the HDPE sleeve designed to be welded on the HDPE liner by
an electro-fusion process at both ends. Electro-fusion welding is a widespread jointing method for PE pipes, especially
in the onshore gas pipeline industry. More information is available in Handbook of plastics Joining – A practical guide
(TWI, 2008).
The sleeve acts as an extension of the liner around the weld location and will guarantee a proper sealing of the
internal fluid. The arrangement of sleeve after insertion is presented in the figure below.

Figure 1: Overview of FBJ sleeve

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The FBJ has a diabolo shape which allows for a 10 mm annulus to be created at the weld location between the
carbon steel pipe and the HDPE sleeve. This annulus guarantees that the carbon steel weld and its inspection can be
performed without any specific provision and that the temperature of the HDPE sleeve remains low enough.
Additionally, the FBJ could be thermally protected with ceramic fiber tape wrapped around it close to the weld location.
In order to guarantee a good fit between the liner and the FBJ, both elements are machined into conical shapes.
This design ensures good contact between the two components during the electro-fusion welding process. More details
on the machining of the liner ends and of the FBJ are given in the figure below.

Figure 2: Machining of the liner end

The length of the conical area is designed to allow for sufficient weld length and thus good sealing properties.
Plastic lining of straight sections can be performed via various methods. The widest spread method consists in
pulling the liner through a die and has been successfully implemented on very long pipe sections especially for reeled
pipes. It is therefore expected that applying it to shorter pipe sections such as the 50 m long quad joints used for J-lay on
installation vessels is not an issue. After insertion, the liner is machined following a concentric profile with the steel
tube.

In order to perform the Electro-fusion weld and all related operations, a dedicated tool was developed, called
the Internal Clamping System (ICS) and fulfils the following tasks:
 Holding the FBJ in position during welding;
 Guaranteeing good contact between the FBJ and liner during welding;
 Supplying electrical power to the cable to perform the electro-fusion weld;
 Operating NDT equipment.

An overview of the ICS is provided in the figure below.

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Figure 3: Internal Clamping System

The ICS is operated within the pipe and is controlled through an umbilical supplying compressed air for the
clamping system, electrical power for the welding and water for NDT. NDT is performed using Ultra-Sonic testing
methods. US testing is commonly used for PE electro-fusion weld inspection and more information on the methodology
can be found in CARAVACA et al. (2006) work.

More information on the fabrication and offshore installation of the FBJ is presented by LIROLA et al. (2013).

4. Overview of the qualification tests

This section highlights the various steps of the qualification program:
 Prototype development: this step consists in designing the sleeve and the ICS. Regarding the sleeve,
the fabrication process as well as the wire insertion process had to be validated. The ICS had to be
designed in order to be easy to handle and provide all the required functions: clamping, welding and
NDT;
 Qualification of the Electro-Fusion Weld: the aim of this stage is to define the welding parameter in
order to guarantee the quality and repeatability of the weld. This stage has also allowed for assessing
the sturdiness of the welding process and its sensitivity to various parameters such a dimensional
tolerances or power shortage;
 Full Process qualification: this program consists in testing the full process in an environment as
representative of the actual operations as possible. These tests have allowed for demonstrating that a
standard carbon steel welding technique can be used to produce the welds and that the FBJ is not
impacted by the process;
 Fatigue testing: 5 strings each featuring 2 carbon steel welds and 4 electro-fusion welds were tested in
order to demonstrate that the technology is applicable to fatigue sensitive applications. Considering
that the tests were performed under high-pressure, the tests also served as a hydrotest for the plastic
welds.

This qualification program was completed at the end of September 2016. This paper summarizes the main
outputs of all the tests that were performed. More details on specific steps were presented by LIROLA et al. (2013) &
LIROLA et al. (2015) during the qualification process.

4.1. Qualification of the Electrofusion Process

In order to demonstrate the electrofusion process is suitable for joining the sleeve to the liner and compatible
with offshore constraints, a dedicated qualification campaign was carried out. The tests performed included:
 Machining of the liner to achieve the required profile;
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 Assessing the influence of welding parameters and dimensional tolerances on the quality of the weld;
 Demonstrating that the welds produced feature similar mechanical properties to that of the base
material;
 Leak testing of all welds to demonstrate watertightness.

A significant number of welds were produced under variable conditions including varying dimensions with the
sleeve: too small or too large and varying welding positions such as vertical or horizontal.

The tests demonstrated that the process is very sturdy and can tolerate significant variations in the welding
parameters and geometry of the two parts to be assembled while producing acceptable welds. Leak testing found all
welds to be tight. Mechanical testing demonstrated that the welded areas mechanical properties are similar to that of the
base material. An overview of the tensile tests results for both the base material and welded area at various temperatures
is provided in the figure below. Curves should be compared for matching testing temperatures, i.e. welded area at 60°C
vs base material at 60°C, welded area at 23°C vs base material at 23°C and welded area at 4°C vs base material at 4°C.

Figure 4: Stress-Strain curve of both base material and welded area for various temperatures

The results obtained show that the mechanical behavior of the two areas is very similar up to the maximum
stress the material can sustain. The discrepancy at large deformation is mainly due to the presence of the cables that
locally increase stresses and deformation in the system. We wish to emphasize that the system is expected to work in
the 1% to 2% strain range while testing demonstrated that HDPE can sustain deformation up to 20% without any risk of
failure.

4.2. Qualification of the Carbon Steel Welding Process in presence of the FBJ
The process qualification consists in fabricating several joints in conditions as close as possible to the actual
conditions in order to demonstrate that the technology is fit for offshore application. In order to do so, tests were carried
out in our testing facility in Cortemaggiore where a mock-up of the assembly station of the welding station of the
installation vessel is available.
The purpose of the tests was to:
 Confirm that the presence of the FBJ sleeve has no impact on the steel weld quality
 Confirm that the FBJ is not damaged during the steel weld;
 Confirm that standard repair methods can be employed, especially that grinding up to the root of the
steel weld has no impact on the FBJ.

In order to do so, several samples were produced. The samples produced encompass:
 Calibration samples: samples were welded without any liners or sleeves in order to fine- tune the
Carbon Steel welding parameters. Once those parameters were set, they were used during the rest of
the welding campaign;
 Monitoring of the shrinkage effect on the steel pipe in the presence of the sleeve;
 Welding of the steel pipe with temperature monitoring on the inside diameter of the HDPE sleeve in
order to check that the temperature remains low enough. A protective layer could be added to the
sleeve should the temperature exceed maximum parameters;

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 Grinding of the weld to the root to demonstrate that pipe repair can be performed with standard repair
procedures. For the purpose of this test, an additional protective layer was added in the annulus
between the sleeve and the carbon steel pipe in order to protect the sleeve during manual repair.

After these samples were produced they were controlled through Manual UT and Radiographic inspection. A
visual inspection of the root pass and the outside diameter of the sleeve was performed.

The monitoring of the shrinkage effect has shown that for a reference distance of 60 mm, the shrinkage effect
has an average amplitude of 0.6 mm which matches well the shrinkage effect observed for standard carbon steel welds
without an HDPE sleeve.

As far as the monitoring of the temperature in the HDPE is concerned, 9 temperature gauges were installed
along the internal face of the sleeve. The gauges were placed symmetrically on each side of the weld to check the
evolution of the temperature along the longitudinal axis of the weld. The layout of the temperature gauges is presented
in the figure below.

Figure 5: Position of Temperature gauges on FBJ Sleeve

The evolution of temperature over time is presented in the figure below.

Figure 6: Evolution of the temperature during carbon steel welding and cool down

It is worth noting that the temperature remained below 120°C all along the welding process which is well in
line with the recommendations of the sleeve manufacturer.

With regard to the repair of the weld, the use of a protective layer during the pre-heating phase and weld repair
was mandatory. Once a layer of protective tape was applied on the sleeve, the repair was performed according to the
standard procedure without impacting the FBJ. An overview of the repair area and FBJ sleeve fitted with the protective
tape are provided in the two figures below. It is emphasized that if no repair is foreseen, i.e. if repair is not allowed for
fatigue reasons or one expects to cut out any weld featuring flaws, then the protective tape is not required.
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Figure 7: Gap opening for manual repair Figure 8: Overview of the FBJ sleeve fitted with ceramic
fiber felt

NDT and visual inspection of the weld were performed on all the samples produced. NDT consisted of both
Manual Ultra-Sonic Testing and Radiographic examination. All welds were found to be acceptable under DNV-OS-
F101 workmanship criteria. Visual inspection showed that the root does not feature any concavity wheel.

Figure 9: Visual Inspection of the root pass Figure 10: Visual Inspection of the sleeve after Carbon
Steel Welding

Once the welding qualification was completed, 5 fatigue strings each featuring 4 carbon steel welds and 8
Electro-Fusion welds were produced. All the welds were controlled through Manual Ultra-Sonic Testing. The weld caps
were grinded flush.

Overall, 23 carbon steel welds and 46 electro-fusion welds were produced. All the welds were found to be
acceptable after NDT. They were produced using standard carbon steel welding techniques and no specific precautions
were taken with regard to the presence of the sleeve.

4.3. Fatigue Testing

The purpose of performing fatigue testing was to demonstrate that the technology is applicable to fatigue
sensitive applications such as SCR. To that extent the aim of the tests was to demonstrate that the carbon steel welds
produced can overmatch a class D curve on the outside diameter and a class E curve on the inside diameter. A second
objective of the tests was to confirm that the Electro-Fusion welds overmatch the Carbon Steel welds.

An overview of the fatigue string is presented below.

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Figure 11: Overview of the fatigue string

In order to allow for the monitoring of the stress in each of the tested welds, 64 strain gauges were installed on
the pipe. A set of 8 gauges was installed on each side of each of the carbon steel welds and 8 gauges were installed at
the location of each of the electro-fusion welds. A view of the fatigue string installed on the fatigue test bench at the
testing laboratory in Rijeka and equipped with all the strain gauges is provided in the picture below.

Figure 12: Fatigue String with Strain Gages Installed

The testing scope was the following:

 4 welds at high stress level: 184 MPa stress range on the OD;
 4 welds at medium stress level: 114 MPa stress range on the OD;
 2 welds at low stress level: 80 MPa on the OD.

Testing was performed under a constant axial stress of 110 MPa so as to ensure that the string always remains
in tension throughout the testing. This axial stress is achieved by filling the pipe with water and pressurizing it at 440
bars. Prior to commencing the fatigue testing, each string had been tested at 550 bars. The absence of leaks at that stage
demonstrated the integrity of the plastic liner and of the electro-fusion welds.

Target curves were calculated based on the guidance from SCHNEIDER et al. (2007) and based on the
standard deviation from DNV GL-RP-0005 (2014). Data from DNV GL-RP-0005 (2014) has been favored over the one
from BS 7608 (2014) as it led to more conservative design curves.

According to SCHNEIDER et al. (2007), the target curve is defined as:

.
10 √ (1)

Where:
 Ntarget is the number of cycles to achieve to ensure a 95% confidence interval;
 ND is the mean number of cycles of the design curve;
 1.645 is a factor ensuring the 95% confidence interval;
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 n is the number of samples tested;
 σ is the log of the standard deviation of the design curve.

Based on the guidance from DNV GL-RP-0005 (2014), σ is taken equal to 0.2. Also, it is highlighted that, for
the sake of being conservative, all target curves were computed considering an SCF equal to 1.

The targets obtained are summarized in the table below.

Table 1: Target for fatigue testing

Stress Range  Stress Range  Number of  Class D mean  Class D target  Class E mean  Class E target 

OD (MPa)  ID (MPa)  samples (Total)  (Cycles)  (Cycles)  (Cycles)  (Cycles) 
184  160  4 (10) 5.88E+05 7.47E+05 6.28E+05  7.98E+05
114  100  4 (10) 2.47E+06 3.14E+06 2.64E+06  3.35E+06
80  70  2 (10) 7.16E+06 9.09E+06 7.64E+06  9.71E+06

The results obtained are presented in Figure 13 for the outside diameter and Figure 14 for the inside diameter.

Figure 13: Fatigue Tests results for outside diameter

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Figure 14: Fatigue Tests results for inside diameter

The results obtained show that the carbon steel welds produced can be classified as:
 Class D on the outside diameter;
 Class E on the inside diameter.

This level of performance is well in line with the level of performance that is required in SCR projects.

Fatigue tests were stopped when a through wall crack was detected. Two options are possible to detect a
through wall crack:
 Pressure drop: if a leak occur, it means both the liner and the carbon steel pipe have failed;
 Sudden change in strain without pressure drop: the crack in the carbon steel pipe alters its mechanical
behaviour, but pressure containment is ensured by the HDPE liner. This case implies that the HDPE
liner and the HDPE welds remain intact.

None of the Electro-fusion had failed as all tests were stopped without any pressure drop. Therefore one can
conclude that the electro-fusion welds overmatch the carbon steel welds. Additionally, a conservative S-N curve was
derived from the results obtained. As it is based on samples that did not fail, the curve obtained is inherently
conservative.

5. Conclusion
The FBJ offers an elegant solution to allow time and cost effective J-laying of plastic lined pipes offshore.
Through the qualification campaign, the work performed demonstrated that this technology allows for achieving good
sealing properties while having little impact on offshore operations. It has been demonstrated that the technology is
fully compatible with offshore operational constraints and standard carbon steel welding procedures. The technology is
now ready for its first offshore application.
Mechanical testing performed on the electrofusion demonstrates that the material is unaffected by the welding
process and that mechanical performances of the assembly are well in line with the ones required by the application.
The fatigue tests performed demonstrated that the carbon steel welds overmatch a class D target life on the
outside diameter and class E target life on the inside diameter which corresponds to the required classes for fatigue
sensitive applications. The Electro-Fusion welds all overmatched the fatigue life of the carbon steel welds. The
technology is thus fully compatible with fatigue sensitive applications such as SCR in a harsh environment.
In addition, it is worth noting that the technology helps increase local content as inserting the plastic liner into
the pipes and machining the cut back length on the liner are both simple operations that can be performed locally.
Subsequently, it is foreseen to develop the technology for applications other than water injection lines using
alternate materials to tackle gas permeation and temperature issues.

6. Acknowledgements
SAIPEM would like to acknowledge its partner, FRANK GmbH, and its subsidiaries for their participation in
the project their availability and responsiveness. SAIPEM would also like to thank the welding teams both in
Cortemaggiore and Rijeka for their willingness to participate and enthusiasm without which the welding qualification
would not have been a success.

7. References
Jerry BAKER, Stuart McINTYRE, A cost-effective corrosion barrier for welded joints in plastic-lined
pipelines, BHR Group 2003, Pipeline Protection
F. LIROLA et al, Fusion Bonded Joint: An Innovative Technology for Cost Efficient Plastic-Lined Pipe
Installation and Operation, DOT 2013
F. LIROLA et al, Fusion Bonded Joint: an Innovative Technology for Cost Efficient Plastic Lined Pipe
Installation and Operation – Qualification Campaign, DOT 2015
TWI, Handbook of plastics Joining – A practical guide, Plastics Design Library, 2008
D S CARAVACA, C BIRD and D KLEINER, Ultrasonic phased array inspection of electrofusion joints in
polyethylene pipes, NDT 2006, the 45th Annual British Conference on NDT, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, September
2006
C. SCHNEIDER & S. MADDOX - Statistical Analysis of Fatigue Data, TWI, 2007
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DNV GL-RP-0005, Fatigue design of offshore steel structures, 2014
BS 7608, Guide to fatigue design and assessment of steel products, 2014

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