Nu Flow Receives Patent for CIPP Liner

Nu Flow, a global inside-infrastructure corporation, has announced that the U.S. Patent Office has granted the company a patent for its cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) liner capable of lining around multiple 90-degree bends. Nu Flow filed the patent application in May, 2005 as part of ongoing efforts to develop and improve their technologies.

The newly issued U.S. Patent No. 7,849,883, titled “Liner assembly for pipeline repair and methods of installing same,” covers Nu Flow’s Flex Liner solution, which is an improvement to traditional CIPP liners that extends the market well beyond traditional CIPP straight pipe applications.

The liner’s advantages are most important inside and below buildings, which have significantly more elbows and junctions in their pipe systems. Nu Flow’s Flex Liner has an internal rubber assembly that gives the liner greater flexibility allowing installation in pipes with 22-, 45- and 90-degree bends without wrinkling inside the liner. The patent also covers Nu Flow’s pull-in-place method of installing the liner, as well as a liner assembly for installing a liner at a junction between a main pipe and a lateral pipe.

The Nu Flow lining process is uniquely capable in pipes ranging from 1 1/2 to 8 in. in diameter, but smaller or larger diameters are also available. Another improvement is that the Flex Liner assembly is constructed to prevent over-expansion during positioning and inflation of the liner within a pipeline, avoiding a common challenge with alternative CIPP liners.