JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #81 - May/June 2013 - 18

corrosion

An odour control system built to last

AOC and ECS Environmental Solutions worked
together to create an integral part of the city
of Austin’s complex wastewater infrastructure
project. The new 6.3-kilometre wastewater
tunnel increases capacity for the downtown
district and facilitates residential and business
growth in the area. An important part of the
project is an odour control system.

CS provided the odour
control equipment
(Figure 1) and relied on
AOC’s Vipel® resin for more
than 305 metres of glass fibre
ductwork and additional
accessories. The ductwork
ranges in size from 305 mm
to 1830 mm in diameter.
Approximately half of the
ductwork is buried below
ground and had to be able to
withstand tonnes of highdensity traffic driving over

Fig. 1: The odour control system

the site. Additional elements
of the project include field
joint kits, flexible connectors, control and back-draft
dampers, bolt gaskets and
two glass fibre exhaust fans
rated at 1130 cubic metres
per minute.

Long life cycle
ECS manufactured all of the
glass fibre ductwork using a
state-of-the-art computerized filament winder. The
fibre was impregnated with
corrosion-resistant vinyl
ester resin, which is ideally
suited for filament
winding. “AOC’s
Vipel® K022 resin
was the best choice
for this project,” says
Jeff Jones, president
of ECS. “Some of
the gases in the air
stream are corrosive
– hydrogen sulphide
and ammonia.
There’s also sulphu-

18 jec composites magazine / No81 May - June 2013

ric acid. Pipes built
with this resin are very
resistant to what goes
in them: they will not
easily corrode.”
To help ease installation, ECS
prefabricated and
sub-assembled the
duct system at its
facility, then shipped Fig. 2: Ductwork to be buried below ground
it to Austin about
an hour away. A
leader, offered technical
field crew of five from ECS
assistance that helped ECS
travelled to the construcre-formulate the resin. Eric
tion site and handled all the
Stuck, AOC sales representafield layup (Figure 2). That’s
tive, also assisted ECS in
when AOC’s service became
meeting the demands of this
invaluable.
material-intensive project.
“With the long runs and thick
pipes, we went through mateClose relationship
rial much faster than normal,
“We work in a controlled
and AOC was very good at
environment in the shop, but
meeting this fluctuation in
in the field you are open to the
demand,” says Jones. “If we
elements,” says Jones. “Some
ran out of resin on this job, it
of the days we were in Austin
would have put the project to
were cold and others were
a halt. AOC got materials here
really hot. We had to adjust
when we needed them. They
promotion levels and add inwere fantastic to work with!” n
hibitors to work with the resin
long enough to do a quality
More information:
www.aoc-resins.com
job under tough conditions.”
www.ecs-env.com
AOC’s Scott Lane, product

More information

ECS Environmental Solutions: ECS, Belton, Texas, is the USA’s leading supplier of odour control equipment and accessories. A division of
family-owned TexGlass Industries, ECS designs and manufactures products at its 9,300-square-metre facility in central Texas. Its odour control
systems have been installed across North America.
AOC: AOC is a leading global supplier of resins, gel coats, colorants,
dispersions and synergistic material systems for composites and cast
polymers.

http://www.aoc-resins.com http://www.ecs-env.com

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #81 - May/June 2013

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