Material pipe of geothermal facility 3

[zacharialamsyah]

Dear All

I have facing problem to design Geothermal facility

Most all of reference tells that the common material pipe of Geothermal facility are Polyethylene, High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), PVC, and CPVC .

Can we replace Carbon steel or Stainless steel instead? What the advantage /disadvantages

Thanks for your answer and response

Reagrds,
Zachari Alamsyah

 

[moltenmetal]

You are perhaps confusing the types of geothermal facilities. The ones which use the plastic pipe are really ground-source heatpump projects- not truly "geothermal" at all. At those modest temperatures, nothing will be cheaper than plastics, which also have the benefit of being seamless/joint free products which come on a roll. That matters a lot for buried piping, especially down a well which will be inaccessible forever onward.

 

[weldstan]

The geothermal units in CA use a lot of Nickel-Chrome-Moly alloys due to the source (underground) water quality and temperature.

 

[rconner]

Not sure exactly what you mean by "geothermal facility", but I know some e.g. some geothermal or district (heating etc.) folks with experience with many pipe materials over many years have used a lot of steel and also e.g. "pre-insulated" ductile iron for such applications (e.g. see gravitation at

http://geoheat.oit.edu/pdf/tp125.pdf).