Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to the field of landscape fabric recovery. More particularly, the invention pertains to apparatus and methods for rolling and removing geotextile liners used as ground covers.
Description of Related Art
Drill pad site remediation and other geotextile liner removal operations are performed to collect used geotextile liners in a space-efficient manner to minimize transport costs and storage requirements, whether permanently in a landfill or temporarily prior to final disposition. Ideally, the geotextile liner material is ultimately transferred to a recycling facility, where the material can be either repurposed or the polymers which form the geotextile liners can be harvested and converted into plastic raw materials or articles of manufacture.
Unfortunately, conventional methods of collecting used geotextile liners are not conducive to recycling efforts. Dirt, rocks, and other debris contaminate bales of used geotextile liner material during collection or are introduced into loose shreds of the geotextile liners stored in transportable containers and interfere with and complicate recycling processes. Further, regardless of the manner of storage and transport of compressed bales of geotextile liners or loose shreds of geotextile liners in containers, the non-uniform size and shape of the geotextile shreds makes handling of the recovered geotextile liners at recycling facilities unwieldy, complicated, and expensive. Recyclers demand that geotextile liners be delivered in a relatively clean state, free of foreign matter, and in a uniform and consistent package that can, for example, be directly fed into shredding machines as a first step in recycling. Current collection methods do not meet these criteria.
Geotextile liners include a wide range of sheet or mat materials used in various applications related to oil and gas exploration, construction, landscaping, and other industries. These geotextile liners may be porous or non-porous, natural or synthetic, and include one layer or more than one layer depending on their intended use. Most notably, the oil and gas exploration industry makes extensive use of geotextile liners in various aspects of drilling operations. Environmental concerns related to spillage of drilling fluids, hydro-fracking additives, and other potentially harmful contaminants dictate that drill pads be constructed with non-porous, heavy-gauge, multi-ply geotextile liners as isolation layers with a heavy gauge plastic sheet ply between two separable felt plies that inhibit punctures from rocks or other objects above and below the geotextile liners.
Isolation layers are formed from continuous lengths of geotextile material that are unrolled from bulk rolls in overlapping strips covering an area to be protected. The overlaps are then formed into water-tight seams by various methods including heat sealing and welding the sheets of geotextile liner together to create a single monolithic layer. A typical geotextile liner may cover an area of 200,000 to 300,000 square feet after the individual sheets of geotextile liner are joined at their overlaps. Gravel, sand, or soil distributed above the now-isolated landscape provides a surface for vehicles and other machinery to move on, while chemicals potentially spilled in the area are prevented from leeching into ground water or contaminating native soils under the geotextile liners.
In other applications, geotextiles are used to form a water-tight layer at the bottom of excavations to create artificial ponds for storage of fresh water used in hydro-fracking. Artificial ponds are created for storing contaminated water and allowing natural evaporative mechanisms to return at least a part of the water to the environment without a need for treatment. Similarly, ditches are lined to channel contaminated fluids without contaminating underlying soils or aquifers. In still further applications, geotextiles are used to create temporary road beds, to protect embankments, on protective berms for soil erosion control, and for other soil management purposes.
Many jurisdictions require that oil and gas drilling sites, whether productive or not, be returned to a natural state at the completion of drilling operations. These requirements also apply to temporary ponds and other well-related structures that would potentially pose a future environmental hazard or that may be visually unappealing.
Conventional remediation practice allows geotextile liners to be buried in place. For example, pond liners are folded into the bottom of the pond excavation they line and are buried with soil previously removed from the same excavation. However, burying geotextile liners in place is not universally possible. In some cases burying geotextile liners is environmentally undesirable, because the geotextile liners may become highly contaminated with drilling fluids and other harmful substances that the geotextile liners are designed to block from seeping into underlying soils.
As a result, current best practice dictates complete removal of geotextile liners from well pad sites when drilling operations are completed. Removal of geotextile liners from a well pad site is complicated by the seamed connections that are created between sheets during the installation process. Geotextile liners are applied directly to the ground in long sheets taken from a construction vehicle holding a bulk spool of material. The finished liner after seaming may cover an area of 200,000 to 300,000 square feet, making the geotextile liner unwieldy to handle during removal and difficult to arrange in compact packages for transport to landfills or recycling facilities.
Removal of the geotextile liners therefore requires that the monolithic sheet be cut into smaller, manageable sections prior to or during collection. One conventional method of cutting geotextile liners is to use a “pizza cutter” cutting wheel designed for scoring asphalt surfaces. The cutting wheel is attached to the bucket of a front end loader or other piece of heavy construction equipment that moves across the geotextile liner and forces the cutting wheel through the geotextile liner and into the ground below. This method is not efficient, however, as soft soils under the geotextile liners allow the geotextile liners to simply sink into the earth under the cutting wheel rather than being cut by the cutting wheel. As a result, cuts are often completed manually using small knives such as gypsum cutters. In some cases, this method is completely abandoned, and the geotextile liners are torn into random shreds using a claw arm of a heavy construction vehicle.
Disposal of the geotextile liners is also difficult. In some instances, the recovered geotextile liner shreds are packed into roll-off containers or mobile garbage bins and transported to landfills. In other cases, the recovered geotextile liner shreds are placed into bailers, similar to car crushers used in scrap metal recovery, and formed into blocks. In either case, the recovered geotextile liner shreds are not only unwieldy to handle and space consumptive in landfills but also often unsuitable for recycling, because the recovery process introduces rocks, soil, and other debris into the recovered material that may complicate or preclude the recycling of the high-value polymers used to make geotextile liners.
A geotextile rolling and collecting apparatus includes a mounting plate, a pair of outer lower forks arranged laterally, a pair of outer upper forks, at least one linear actuator, at least one lower feed drum, at least one upper feed drum, and at least one first drive motor. Each outer lower fork is substantially L-shaped and includes a vertical section extending vertically upward from a horizontal section and attached to the front side of the mounting plate. Each outer upper fork is substantially L-shaped and has a first end pivotally attached to the vertical section of one of the pair of outer lower forks. The linear actuator is coupled to rotate the outer upper forks with respect to the outer lower forks between a collecting position and an open position. The lower feed drum is mounted on a horizontal axis between horizontal sections of the pair of outer lower forks. The upper feed drum is mounted on a second horizontal axis between the second ends of the pair of outer upper forks. The first drive motor is coupled to rotate the lower feed drum on the first horizontal axis and to counter-rotate the upper feed drum on the second horizontal axis. With the geotextile rolling and collecting apparatus in the collecting position, a geotextile liner grasped between the upper feed drum and the lower feed drum is fed by counter-rotation of the upper feed drum and the lower feed drum into a collecting volume behind the upper feed drum and the lower feed drum and between the upper forks and the lower forks to form at least one geotextile liner roll in the collecting volume.
A method of collecting a geotextile liner located on a ground surface as at least one geotextile liner roll includes placing a leading edge of the geotextile liner between at least one upper feed drum and at least one lower feed drum of a geotextile rolling and collecting apparatus in a collecting position. The method also includes feeding the geotextile liner grasped between the upper feed drum and the lower feed drum by counter-rotation of the upper feed drum and the lower feed drum into a collecting volume behind the upper feed drum and the lower feed drum and between the upper forks and the lower forks. The method further includes rotating the geotextile liner in a predetermined direction within the collecting volume as the geotextile liner is fed to the collecting volume to form the geotextile liner roll in the collecting volume.
A geotextile rolling and collection apparatus forms compact rolls of recovered geotextile liner that has been cut into long strips of relatively uniform width. The rolls of recovered geotextile liner may be easily transferred directly from the geotextile rolling and collection apparatus to, for example, a flatbed truck for transportation. Alternatively, the rolls of recovered geotextile liner may be lifted and moved using a front end loader lance attachment similar to those used for moving large round bales of hay. Thus, rolls of recovered geotextile liner may be easily transferred to and from trucks and between storage areas and recycling process equipment at recycling facilities.
Rolls of recovered geotextile liner may be formed without using a central spindle, core, axle, or other element at the center of the roll of recovered geotextile liner. Therefore rolls of recovered geotextile liner may be directly fed into shredding equipment prior to further processing during recycling. Alternatively, a core may be inserted into the center of the roll of recovered geotextile liner. Using a core allows the roll of recovered geotextile to be unwound and fed into process machinery in a continuous sheet for shredding, washing, or other processing.
Referring to
Upper forks 40 are movably attached to the lower forks 10, so that the upper forks 40 may be lowered to roll geotextile material or, as shown in
While the upper forks 40 and lower forks 10 have been depicted as substantially “L” shaped elements, other geometries are also possible, including but not limited to, semi-circular or arcuate elements forming a “clam shell” profile such that the upper forks 40 and lower forks 10 define an internal space when the upper forks 40 and lower forks 10 are in a collecting position with a first end of the upper forks 40 brought to a position near a first end of the lower forks 10. Thus, the upper forks 40 and lower forks 10 cradle and confine the geotextile roll, as the geotextile liner material is collected in the internal space defined by the upper forks 40 and lower forks 10.
A series of rotating feed drums 20 is mounted between adjacent lower forks 10 at the first end of the lower forks 10, with the surface of each feed drum 20 extending above the lower forks 10. As shown in
In preferred embodiments, a differential speed controller is added to increase the rotational speed of feed drums 20 on one side of the geotextile rolling and collection apparatus 200, and decrease rotational speed of feed drums 20 at the other side of the geotextile rolling apparatus. Differentially changing the rotational speed of feed drums 20 across the width of the geotextile rolling apparatus in this manner adjusts tracking of the geotextile roll in the geotextile rolling and collection apparatus 200 such that the geotextile roll does not “wander” out of either side of the geotextile rolling and collection apparatus 200 as the geotextile roll forms. In other embodiments, the feed drums 20 may be connected to a common axle extending the entire width of the geotextile rolling and collection apparatus 200 and driven by a single hydraulic motor 60.
As shown in
In some embodiments, surface features are added to the feed drums 20 of the upper forks 40 and feed drums 20 of the lower forks 10 to increase the grip of the feed drums 20 on the geotextile liner between them. Surface features may include, but are not limited to, axial ribs or ridges that mate between the opposing feed drums 20, knurling, sets of bumps and corresponding mating dimples, and pyramidal points. Alternatively, or additionally, the feed drums 20 of the upper forks 40 and the feed drums 20 of the lower forks 10 may be coated with a layer of, for example, hard rubber or other material that has a high coefficient of friction relative to the geotextile liner to enhance gripping of the geotextile liner between opposing feed drums 20.
As shown in
As shown in
In some embodiments, as shown in
In other embodiments, as shown in
For the purposes of this description, “drive belt” 90 includes any of a variety of continuous loops spanning at least a part of the circumference of two or more roller drums 30. These continuous loops may include, but are not limited to, wide reinforced rubberized belts similar to those found in use as conveyor belts, one or more narrow reinforced belts similar to automotive engine belts, linked metal mesh belts, or one or more chains that mate with elements on a surface or axle of two or more roller drums 30. Drive belts 90 may include belts used solely for the purpose of transferring motive force to the geotextile liner being rolled but also include dual purpose drive belts 90 that additionally transfer motive force from one roller drum 30 to one or more other roller drums 30.
As shown in
At an upper extent of the upper forks 40, the curl belt frame 130 is mounted on a curl belt axle 115 between two upper forks and provided with a spring 135, which biases the curl belt frame 130 and the curl belt 120 to rotate about the curl belt axle 115 toward the front of the geotextile rolling and collecting apparatus.
As the geotextile liner 190 continues to be fed into the geotextile rolling apparatus, as shown in
Rotation of the roller drums 30 of the upper forks 40, in turn, redirects the geotextile liner 190 to roll downward toward the lower forks 10. In preferred embodiments, as shown in
As shown in
Referring now to
As shown in
While the geotextile rolling and collecting apparatus has been discussed herein primarily in relation to strips of heavy gauge polymer geotextile liner, the applications of the device are not limited by the material to be rolled. Any material capable of being rolled may be collected with the apparatus, including but not limited to, geotextile strips, artificial turf strips, carpeting, and roofing membranes.
In some embodiments, the geotextile rolling and collecting apparatus includes a reciprocating carrier on one or more rollers to apply a wrap around a geotextile roll in the collecting volume prior to expelling the geotextile roll. The wrap prevents the geotextile roll from unrolling after being expelled from the geotextile rolling and collecting apparatus. In some embodiments, the wrap also protects the geotextile roll from damage or detritus during storage or transport of the geotextile roll. In some embodiments, the wrap is stretch wrap. In some embodiments, the reciprocating carrier moves a roll of stretch wrap from side to side as the finished geotextile roll continues to be circulated in the collecting volume, thereby wrapping the geotextile roll in the stretch wrap. In some embodiments, the wrap includes an adhesive.
In some embodiments, a cutter is used in combination with the geotextile rolling and collecting apparatus to cut the geotextile liner into two or more strips having a width within a predetermined range of widths less than or about equal to the width of the geotextile rolling and collecting apparatus. In some embodiments, the cutter is part of a cutting apparatus that is a separate apparatus from the geotextile rolling and collecting apparatus. In other embodiments, the cutter is an integrated part of the geotextile rolling and collecting apparatus, preferably extending from one of the lower forks.
The lifting arm 225 extends from the mounting plate 215 and provides structural support for the cutting disc 220, universal joint 260, and transmission. The leading end of the lifting arm 225 is formed with a bevel 240 that allows the lifting arm 225 to easily wedge between the material to be cut and underlying surfaces, so as to lift the material to be cut off the underlying surface and guide it along the lifting arm 225 to the cutting disk 220. One end of a service boom 230 is welded to the mounting plate 215 parallel to, and slightly above, the top of the lifting arm 225. A blade guard 235 is employed to prevent injury from personnel coming in contact with the cutting disk 220, or from debris propelled by the cutting disk 220. Additionally, a height adjustable wheel 275 is added under the lifting arm 225 to provide stability and to ensure that the bevel 240 of the lifting arm is optimally positioned to slide under the material to be lifted, but does not dig into potentially sensitive underlayment, such as fiberboard or plywood found under large area carpeting, or roofing membranes, for example.
Although the cutter in
Accordingly, it is to be understood that the embodiments of the invention herein described are merely illustrative of the application of the principles of the invention. Reference herein to details of the illustrated embodiments is not intended to limit the scope of the claims, which themselves recite those features regarded as essential to the invention.
This application claims one or more inventions which were disclosed in Provisional Application No. 61/938,890, filed Feb. 12, 2014, entitled “Geotextile Rolling Apparatus”. The benefit under 35 USC §119(e) of the United States provisional application is hereby claimed, and the aforementioned application is hereby incorporated herein by reference.
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