HDD Rocky River Project

A 2,400-foot section of a 30-inch OD gas pipeline was to be installed under the Rocky River in North Carolina by Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD). The rocky geology under the river created tough drilling conditions, with several months required for drilling and reaming the borehole to size for pipeline pullback.

Offering 33% more gouge resistance than other composite products and 40% more abrasion resistance than other composites, ScarGuard® is safe, fast and easy to install.

The high risk of damage to the pipeline anticorrosion coatings during HDD pullback in rocky terrain, and the time and costs associated with rework, redrilling, or pipe replacement if the coatings become damaged, necessitated a high-performance Abrasion Resistant Overcoat (ARO) for protection of both the mainline and field joint coatings.

To protect the Canusa-CPS HBE-95 field joint coating during the tough HDD pull, Canusa-CPS offered ScarGuard®, a fiber-reinforced composite mechanical protection system.

Typically applied as a 2-layer system, a 4-layer system was selected for this project due to the rocky terrain, tough drilling conditions, size of the pipe, and tight construction window.  The 4-layer ScarGuard® system can be applied just as easily as a 2-layer system by simply switching the spiral wrapping overlap from 50% to 75%.

SFL Technical Support and distributor, worked with the contractor to train and certify all the applicators.

The ScarGuard® coated pipe was successfully installed underneath the Rocky River and passed both the visual inspection and coating conductance testing.

The owner and contractor were happy with the technical support provided and the performance of ScarGuard® during the difficult HDD installation.