Robotic equipment cleans and coats pipeline's internal field joints

摘要

When water is scarce, every drop counts, whether it is quenching thirst or fulfilling agricultural and industrial needs. Preserving the integrity of the scarce water supply at the Candelaria open-pit copper mine near the mining and agriculture town of Copiapo, Chile was the primary goal of a project that used a robotic corrosion prevention system to apply an environmentally friendly fusion-bonded epoxy (FBE) coating to nearly 6,400 internal field joints on a 85-km long, 24-in (700-mm) diameter pipeline for process water.