Pipeline construction is a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. To date, all pipes have been built in short pieces (20 feet or 6 m long) in plants and are shipped to the site and connected together in the field to form a long pipeline. This system is very inefficient resulting in leaking joints and costly transportation of pipe segments from the factory to the site.
Recently, Prof. Ehsani introduced InfinitPipe®, a revolutionary technique for onsite manufacturing of pipes. The technique allows a pipeline of virtually any length and diameter to be made continuously on site – eliminating all joints. Partial funding for this development was provided by the US National Science Foundation through a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant.
Advantages of InfinitPipe® include: