Chevron Phillips Chemical (CPChem) manufactures chemicals and polymers that the world needs. Starting from the basic molecule, they make sure that the materials meet the highest standards for the intended end-use applications. In their pipe pressure testing facility in Bartlesville, OK, they currently have 1,100 hydrostatic pressure stations. With the new solution from IPT and Pipeson they can monitor the tests in real time, ensuring an efficient process and easy status updates for customers.
As the business and scope of CPChem’s projects for the development of pipe resins grew, it became increasingly obvious that the process of generating, collecting and transferring data manually was inefficient. Following a thorough market research process, CPChem decided to invest in a solution from IPT and to complement the current Pipeson Analyzer solution with Pipeson Data Manager for seamless data flow.
Previously a designated engineer would manually transfer the test data to Pipeson Analyzer. In the new solution the test data is transferred automatically to a central database, and all authorized personnel have access to current projects in real time, directly in Pipeson Analyzer.
“Information about the progress of the tests that we are tracking is just one click away and that allows us to make timely adjustments and make sure that the products we are testing will meet the requirements”, says Vic Rohatgi, Pipe Applications Manager.”
Data communication is efficient and error-free, and reports based on the latest data are always available for anyone with a license. The software also allows CPChem to obtain progress reports from third party testing, in a highly confidential and secure manner.
“Pipeson has a user-friendly interface. One does not have to be an expert to use it, and we always have the most current data right at our fingertips.”
Dow Europe is the leading provider of PE-RT materials that are used in a wide variety of applications. Different applications mean different requirements in design, which adds complexity to the testing. Today Dow uses Pipeson Analyzer all over the world as a tool for product- and application development and technical support.
”Pipeson Analyzer is a useful tool and our product development and technical service teams often use the regression analyses provided by testing institutes to perform new calculations. It’s much less time consuming than to work in Excel”, says Alex Stolarz, Development Engineer Pipe Applications.
”We work with both new test data and the results of completed ISO 9080 evaluations. Analyzer adds control and provides us with a better overview of our projects. It also makes it possible for us to compare the performance of different materials and formulations”, says Alex.
Easier to assess lifetime of materials
The ’line lifetime’ functionality makes it faster to assess the lifetime for both standardized and non-standardized end user applications.
”Our materials are often used for multilayer pipe system and the multilayer functionality in Analyzer is a great tool. We can provide our customers with good answers to their questions and they can also come to more conclusions on their own”, says Alex Stolarz.
User-friendly software
”We really appreciate the user friendliness and the automatic functions. Analyzer has been a great investment so far. We also really appreciate that testing institutes offer online access 24/7 directly in Pipeson Analyzer using the Pipeson platform. It saves us time and allows us to monitor the status and progress in our projects in an efficient way”, Alex Stolarz.
Borealis is a leading provider of plastics solutions for the pipe industry with more than 50 years’ experience in advanced polyolefins. Utilizing the own developed Borstar® technology, Borealis focus on providing plastic materials to the infrastructure markets across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. For infrastructure pipes and fittings Borealis focus areas are; water supply systems, sewerage systems, plumbing & heating systems and pipeline protection systems. Through a continuous dialogue with customers and stakeholders, Borealis develop and broaden their innovative product and service portfolios.
”We have used Analyzer since 2008 in our Innovation Centers in Austria, Sweden and Finland to support our research and development work”, says Kurt Stubenrauch, Head of Competence Centre Polyolefin Design & Conversion.
Useful around the organization
Borealis is a leading provider of plastics solutions for the pipe industry and works with many different pressure pipe- and fitting materials such as PE, PEX, PP-R and PP-RCT. Different functionalities of Analyzer are used in different parts of the organization.
”The Application Development & Technical Service Team uses the Pipeson Analyzer to show pipe pressure test data to our customers. Research and development uses the ’compare’ functionality to visualize the performance of different materials. Application Development and Technical Service perform regression analyses to predict lifetimes and to classify new materials. The ’line lifetime’ functionality is also useful to us for assessing the lifetime for different service conditions”, says Kurt.
Make the most of the data
”Pipeson Analyzer makes it possible to quickly evaluate pipe pressure test data which allows us to put the data to better use. Analyzer also makes it easy for us to distribute different data files, graphs, tables with results and reports, both between the different Borealis locations but also to our customers”, says Kurt Stubenrauch.