ROBOTIC APPLICATIONS OF FLEXIBLE LINERS

The everting liner mechanism has many useful attributes. One interesting fact is that the everting liner can propagate (grow at the end) without sliding on the surface over which it is propagating, because the liner is fed to the eversion point from the interior of the liner.

This growth-at-the-end coupled with the inherent rigidity of the everting liner under pressure allows one to carry and push "things" into remote passages in which people and other mechanisms may not go. Upon retrieval of the liner by inversion, any contamination clinging to the outside of the liner is inverted into its interior and safe from contamination of the pressure canister or other container of the recovered liner.

With the science and engineering of everting liners available at FLUTe, we can construct a tower that that is everted from a reel within a pressure canister. We can push and pull many instruments into holes. We can guide the progress of liners through tortuous pipes and horizontal holes. We can tow casing into horizontal holes (see LAHD FLUTe), and then remove the liner from about the casing with minimal effort. We can reline passages (see Magic FLUTe) or apply resins to hole walls very uniformly. We can tow fire hoses up brushy mountainsides and across rivers, lakes, or underwater.

The progressive packer system is especially well suited to installation of the perfectly conforming well screen liner of an unstable borehole.

These applications are mainly limited by our ability to communicate our capabilities to those who can use them. However, the calculational models which we have developed are well suited to use beyond the environmental applications, our main business.

For more information on this technique, contact us at