Trelleborg has developed a product, that can withstand a jet fire - the cause of the Piper Alpha disaster.

The product is already in use on several platforms, primarily in the North Sea.
It was 9:31 p.m. on July 6, 1988 when the alarm sounded. The Piper Alpha oil platform off the British coast was burning. The fire was intensive and spread rapidly. Within seconds, the entire platform was ablaze and had split in two. A total of 167 persons lost their lives.
The cause of the fire was a leak in a pipe that started what is called a jet fire. This is a very explosive fire that can reach a temperature of 1300°C within a few seconds. The flame, which was as hot as a welding arc, quickly burned out the water circulation system, making it impossible to save the platform.
Since this accident, Trelleborg has developed a product, Elastopipe, that can withstand a jet fire, while offering a number of other benefits. The product is already being used on several platforms, primarily in the North Sea. The product was developed by Trelleborg Viking A/S in Mjondalen, Norway, about 50 kilometres west of Oslo.
The principal financiers of the project are the Norwegian government and the Statoil, Hydro, BP/Amcon and Phillips oil companies.
To rationalise development work, Trelleborg Viking built a test rig in Norway. Several hundred tests have been conducted on this rig, which remains in use for continuous testing each week, meaning that it will play a key role in ongoing development.
The rig allows many different possible, as well as completely impossible, scenarios to be simulated. Exactly the desired combination of flame speed, temperature and heat flux parameters can be created for testing.
"Through testing, we have determined that the material should withstand a gas flame with an initial speed of 270 metres per second, an entry speed in the material of 110 meters per second and a temperature of 1400° C," says development manager Kyrre Sjotun.
"Naturally, we are not willing to reveal the secret behind Elastopipe's unique characteristics, but I can say that an important property is that the material 'sweats', which means that it will not start burning," continues Sjotun.
"Elastopipe is based on synthetic rubber. Basically, it is a method for transporting water, a pipe, that at the same time must meet a number of different and very stringent requirements, of which the most fundamental is that it must withstand the special form of fire called jet fire."
Today the product can replace the steel and titanium pipes that are used on many of the world's oil plat-forms.
"We can now compete with all the materials and dimensions used in this market," says Kyrre Sjotun.