Reducing Maintenance with Polyurethane Pipes: Superior Abrasion Resistance and Lighter than Steel

By Edrick Dudang and Connor Holdbak, Redwood Plastics and Rubber

For mining operations, special attention to piping is needed to keep and maintain operations flowing. It is not uncommon for metal pipes to leak or break due to significant wear and damage over time, and maintenance managers already anticipate that their metal pipes would need replacing sooner rather than later. 

Metal pipes are prone to scratching due to their naturally low abrasion resistance. When metal pipes are carrying minerals like sand and gravel, these deposits continuously hit and break apart the pipes. Loud noises are often generated when these minerals make impact, causing safety risks for workers and managers. 

Metal pipes also have very low chemical resistance. When drilling and extracting, mines often have to carry a wide variety of chemicals and transport them along with their deposit. These chemicals can degrade metal pipes, causing them to rust and break in a short amount of time.  

Polyurethane pipes – a solution for abrasive and corrosive issues

Polyurethane pipes have properties that make them superior alternatives to metal pipes in a variety of applications and environments. When polyurethane experiences impact, the energy gets distributed evenly across the part rather than absorbing in one specific area like metal. This enables polyurethane to outlast metal in applications where high impact is constant.

Corner pipes are typically where polyurethane functions better than metal. A corner pipe’s responsibility is to sharply redirect flow from one direction to another, but this interaction causes these pipes to experience significant impact that wears them out quickly. A polyurethane corner pipe, like the ones illustrated below, is far superior.  

Polyurethane also has very high abrasion resistance because it has a lower coefficient of friction than metal. This enables it to glide materials very well, drastically reducing abrasion. Polyurethane doesn’t rust as well which is one of the major reasons pipes break. 

Replacing metal piping

Ten years ago, we had a customer who came to us about their metal pipes and how they were breaking in only 18 months due to a combination of abrasion and corrosion issues. The customer is a mine that was extracting abrasive minerals and using the pipes to carry them through their processing facility. The short wear life of their pipes was causing issues since they had to shut down their entire facility whenever they had to replace them. Combined with the cost of the replacement pipes, the overall downtime costs were too big to endure. They required a more long-term and cost-effective solution. 

We investigated intensively to capture what piping material would be best for our customer; we asked our customer what minerals they were extracting and the current capacity of their piping network. We manufactured a custom-designed polyurethane pipe for a trial run to see if it would outperform their old metal pipes. Surely enough, they were impressed that our pipe lasted longer than 18 months and ordered an entire batch!

Another advantage our customer enjoyed is that the polyurethane pipes were much lighter, enabling them to easily replace the pipes and reduce downtime.  

The pipes lasted for nine years when they called us last year for a new batch.

Urethane solves coal plant frustrations

One of our other customers who works at a coal mine was suffering from maintenance issues with both metal and polyethylene (UHMW) pipes. The steel pipes were corroding and extremely heavy, making them difficult to maintain as the pipes were in a difficult area to access. 

We then gave our customer pipes made by Redco 430™, our proprietary blend of polyurethane with incredible abrasion resistance. After a trial run, our customer found that these pipes outperformed the pipes the customer was previously testing or using.  Our customer asked to replace most of their piping network with the parts we made; they have been a customer ever since. 

We can help

Redwood Plastics and Rubber has over 50 years been supplying custom plastic and elastomer solutions for the mining industry. Our in-house manufacturing and design teams are ready and able to manufacture products, like polyurethane pipes that reduce wear, abrasion, corrosion, or impact issues within your facility. 

For our full list of mining solutions we supply to mines, visit our mining solutions webpage.