It is of vital importance to conduct a few controls: before, during and after the installation of the FORTEC system.

Surface preparation: 

Before shot blasting the metal surface area to be repaired should be carefully inspected.  Any traces of oil, grease or other contaminants should be eliminated with solvent.

Abrasive blast cleaning to SA 2.5 should comply to ISO 8501-1 standard and be carried out under adequate ambiant humidity conditions (3°C minimum above due point).

Steel surface anchor profile should be checked so as to get a result close to 80 µm  (Rz) and preferably not inferior to 60 µm (Rz).

A standard comparative roughness gauge can be used.

Corrosion check:

A re-check of the pipe corrosion state is often recommended after shot blasting the steel surface. In many occasions new corrosion problems might appear,  deeper corrosion pits or even holes might be discovered. NDT checks at that point is highly recommended.

One of the strong assets of the FORTEC system is the possibility to modify the repair design on the spot as long as there is sufficient material on stock.

PROKEM supply all certified installers with the propper means to recalculate the repair design if necessary.

During the course of installation:

Before starting the installation of the FORTEC system, steel temperature should be registered whenever surface temperature is an issue.

PROKEM recommends to check the composite hardness before stripping off the stricture banding when it is specified with Shore A gauge.

Overall composite thickness should be controlled to make sure that the right number of wraps is installed.

All the relevant data should be noted and part of the final report issued to the end-user.

Batch numbers and validity date of the resin should also be  checked and noted.

PROKEM has included in its documentation a page with all data to be input by the installer and sent to PROKEM after completion of the job.

PROKEM make sure that all certified installers are trained to make these checks in order to ensure the end-users a constant quality of the repairs effected.