PCT’s Bryan Friend commented ‘Pipe manufacturers are beginning to realise that providing pipes in the traditional ‘stick’ lengths is no longer a viable option. Installing pipelines using ‘stick’ lengths is incredibly inefficient due to the unavoidable bottle neck of butt welds or electro fusion joints every 12 or 20m. Installing long lengths of coiled pipe takes a fraction of the labour force and the number of welds is reduced by a factor of 10-20 greatly increasing the pipelines integrity whilst lowering maintenance costs’

With all PCT machinery, the new RTP coiler comes with many automated features as standard with optional extras such as automatic strapping and automatic integrated unload arm available.

The SPC180-LV-S is also capable of automatic pp strapping which allows the pipe to be safely and efficiently secured with intermittent straps applied during the coiling process.  An integrated unload arm is another feature of this machine which allows the operator to safely unload the finished coil from the coil head and place it onto a storage frame.

LV Technology is now well established in Europe and North America as the demand for long lengths of large diameter HDPE pipe increases. LV Technology not only reduces transport costs by maximising the amount of coiled pipe per load but also greatly increases the integrity of the finished pipeline.

For example, DN160 pipe can be coiled in 900m lengths allowing for a much quicker installation time, by removing up to 73 butt welds per 900m coil, and with less joints the pipeline’s integrity is significantly increased. Even with pipe sizes that can already be coiled with standard coiling machinery, LV can make a big difference to profit margins through its ability to supply longer lengths of coiled pipe within existing coil dimensions, increasing the pipe length per truck and so reducing overall transportation costs. Transporting thinner walled pipes in coil format also becomes a possibility with Low Ovality as it is capable of coiling pipes with SDR up to 21 & 26 whilst maintaining coil and pipe stability.

50t Drum Carrier

The State of the art drum carrier is capable of moving ultra large drums around a factory without the need for an overhead crane. It is designed for both indoors and outdoors operation and has a minimum overall width and height for ease of moving load in and out of the factory. It can optimised for minimum overall and point floor loading and is powered by a self contained LPG powered generator and operated by single operator via pendant. The carrier is capable of pick-up and drop-off to the floor or the take up stand

50t TUPO

The innovative pintle type design TUPO machine is also capable of handling ultra large drums and is suitable for plastic pipes, RTP pipes, flexibles, umbilicals and power cables. With a compact footprint and low headroom requirement, the 50t TUPO is ideal for handling large drums in a confined factory environment.

Designed to operate with the matching 50t drum mover, it provides the capability to load and unload the drums without the need for an overhead crane. Fully automatic layering and dwell operation come as standard along with the ability for full integration with process line and provision for operation in torque control or speed control with light curtain dancer.

A clever feature of the under-rollers is the ability to swap the traverse unit from one machine to the other so that either machine can be the take-up. The traverse unit also includes a dancer arm which provides feedback to trim the speed of the pay-off unit. The units are designed to take drums up to 4 m in diameter by 2.6 m wide and a weight of up to 30,000Kg.

The rebatch line is fully compliant with EU health & safety standards and has been fitted with a number of safety features. These include safety fencing which completely encloses the line and sensors fitted to entrance points which automatically reduces the speed of the winding to safely allow operators to work within the area.

The new riverside location has direct access to deep water quay facilities enabling quayside mobilisation and vessel load out for larger equipment. Complementing the design, project management and customer support services offered by PCT are manufacturing facilities, including fabrication, shot-blast & painting which are operated on the same site by our strategic partner W D Close & Sons. The combined capabilities enable us to design, manufacture and assemble large equipment, such as carousels of up to 7000t capacity, with all activities taking place on one site.

This expansion of UK based activities comes less than 18 months after establishing subsidiary operations in the USA, PCT Inc, and in China, PCT China Ltd, through which the group has expanded global sales and manufacturing capabilities.

PCT Ltd is a privately owned company based in Newcastle UK with subsidiaries in the USA and China. The company designs and supplies coiling, handling and packaging solutions for flexible products such as plastic pipe, sub-sea umbilical, power cables, flow-lines and steel wire rope.

The stands will form part of a new wire rope closing line which will produce some of the largest wire ropes in the world when it goes into service in 2012.  The state-of-the-art facility that Bridon is building on Tyneside will manufacture some of the largest and most complex ropes in the world, and will further cement the company’s position as a global technology leader.

The innovative stand design allows full drums to be loaded and unloaded either directly from the factory floor or from a transport trailer without the need for an overhead crane.  This ability, combined with a lightweight design, offers significant operational benefits over the traditional style of large take-up stands used in the wire rope sector and was the primary factor behind Bridon’s selection of PCT as supplier on this flagship project.  Bridon’s Colin Pratt commented “We awarded this contract after a rigorous six month tender process, during which PCT clearly demonstrated that their unique and innovative machine solution would meet Bridon’s operational requirements.”

The contract award is a testament to the technical innovation of the PCT design team and the proven ability of the company to deliver high quality, bespoke engineering solutions to global industry leaders in manufacturing sectors such as wire rope, sub-sea umbilical, power cable and flow-lines.

One of the first machines to be manufactured by PCT Inc was also the first coiling machine in the USA to be equipped with PCT’s Low Ovality Technology System. LV Technology significantly reduces the out of roundness of coiled polyethylene pipe and is able to coil pipe diameters of up to 8” with less than 5% ovality occurring. The coiler was also fitted with an automatic strapping system which reduces operator involvement in the coil production cycle, improving coiling efficiency and operator safety.  Completed coils, weighing up to 5,500lbs, are safely removed from the coiler using an integrated unload jib which places coils onto a cradle or onto a forklift truck. Low Ovality coiling machinery has been established in the European plastic pipe industry for many years and is regarded by many as essential equipment for the production of large bore HDPE pipe.

Low Ovality Technology (LV™) from Pipe Coil Technology Ltd has been used in Europe for some time now to provide a stable platform for HDPE and MDPE pipe in coil form. Users of LV promote and supply coils with less than 5% ovality in the 90mm to 180mm OD range, eliminating kinking failures and the need for further pre-installation manipulation on site. LV can also provide longer continuous coils by starting the coils at a smaller ID. With new ploughing technologies and the need for longer continuous lengths and larger diameters in coil form, a new technology was waiting to be introduced to remove the backlog of butt welding constraints and failures caused by contamination and poor practises.

4600m of DN160 or 800m of DN315 on a reel, sounds implausible outside of the offshore oil and gas industry. At Pipe Coil Technology Ltd we are used to dealing with these sorts of lengths having years of handling and development experience for the off-shore umbilical industry. In marrying two areas of our expertise we can provide equipment to coil and store these example unit lengths at the manufacturing point, transport them and dispense them at the installation site for gas gathering, mining slurry lines and major irrigation projects.

Combining trenchless ploughing-in techniques with our LV reeling technology the installation cost savings can be orders of magnitude. Ploughs of this type are capable of simultaneous burying of 2 x DN315 pipes. Reeled pipe feeds also assist by direct in-line pay-off whilst the ploughing occurs so there are no long pre-strung lengths sat in the extremes of ambient temperature. The obvious savings occur with minimal or zero butt welding teams having to make clinical environment joints in these extreme conditions. The larger sizes above DN180 require LV and straightening on site but this does not slow the ploughing-in speeds, only providing a final manipulation to ensure ease of installation. Branch and distribution line installations also benefit from LV technology in its original free standing coil formats that can be utilised in urban areas.

Complementary processes further enhance and exploit the overall effectiveness of longer continuous pipe lengths. A partner company has patented portable extrusion line technology that operates from linked container sized units to provide a localised pipe production base feeding pipe in reel or coil sizes normally considered too large for un-escorted highway transportation. Rehabilitation projects using Swagelining™ or Slip lining can also be enhanced by removing the need to string out long butt welded lengths which require de-beading, sometimes both internally and externally.