I feel very grateful that Mr. Bouchart was willing to support our ideas! We met at the Calgary Water Center on Wednesday November 13, 2024. The discussion lasted for roughly an hour.

Our email for setting up a conversation:

During our meeting, Mr. Bouchart walked us through the pipeline implementation process:

1. Identify the area of pipeline replacement. This is often the area where the pipeline bursts.
2. Evaluate the environmental conditions and circumstances surrounding the pipelines. Specifications regarding the withstanding pressure, reactivity of the pipeline material, etc must be identified.
   1. The internal reactivity of the pipeline is a vital condition to consider. In particular, the interaction between iron and water in iron-infused water pipelines poses significant challenges. Over time, this reactivity can lead to the corrosion of the iron, resulting in the leaching of iron particles into the water supply—which results in a reddish discoloration of the water, which, while not toxic, can be quite unsettling for consumers.
   2. The external reactivity of the pipeline must also be identified. Engineers learned from a 2004 pipeline burst incident that sulfate compounds within the soil accelerates the corrosion process of pipelines.
3. They evaluate the pipelines proposed by different companies that fit all specifications. The best pipeline is chosen based on the maximization of both quality and cost.
4. They partner with and implement the specific company’s pipeline!

Mr. Bouchart also gave very valuable advice for the next steps we should take.

1. Regarding our idea of integrating graphene concrete into the PCCP pipelines, he recommended us to contact universities or pipeline-creating companies to begin testing and validating the strength of the graphene concrete. Our hypothesis is that infusing graphene into concrete would mitigate the micro-cracking of the concrete, but this must be validated with data. In particular, we could contact RICE University to explore further in their 2020 discovery of flash graphene through using the Flash Joule Heating method. By continuing the research and testing of graphene concrete pipelines, we can further understand its properties—such as its reactivity to specific metals or minerals within the soil—to prove it can be safely employed into the real world.
2. Success story: They are working with Pure Technologies—a valuable pipeline inspection company that we could potentially consult to further develop our idea of creating an on-line, internal robotic repair device. Dr. Bouchart recommends we contact Pure Technologies (https://www.xylem.com/en-ca/support/contact-us/)
3. It would be difficult to conduct on-line internal repairs though. After conducting on-line internal inspections using PipeDiver, Pure Technologies noticed that the obtained data was less accurate than the data obtained from off-line internal inspections.