The "maintenance" and "power" dual-core strategy for pressure-sealing: Ensuring the safety and efficiency of industrial arteriesDeep within the roaring industrial pipe gallery, a successful pressurized sealing operation is not merely an exciting "surgical procedure", but rather an art of energy balance achieved through precise instruments and scientific management. The leak point of the ammonia water pipeline is making a hissing sound. A professional team with equipment arrived promptly. While ensuring the uninterrupted flow of the pipeline medium, they began the operation of pressure-sealing. Unlike the traditional maintenance method that requires equipment shutdown and pressure relief, this technology can avoid huge economic losses and equipment damage caused by equipment shutdown, and significantly reduce the safety risks and environmental pollution brought about by medium leakage. 01 Core Understanding: What is the "maintenance power" of pressure-sealing operations? The pressure-sealing technology, as a cutting-edge technique for conducting maintenance, renovation or emergency rescue operations on pressure-bearing equipment such as pipelines and containers without interrupting the flow, has been widely applied in various critical fields including petroleum, chemical industry, natural gas and municipal pipelines. "Maintaining power" is not a single technical parameter, but rather a comprehensive concept that integrates the level of equipment maintenance and energy utilization efficiency. It directly determines whether the pressure-sealing equipment can maintain a reliable state of "ready to respond, capable of fighting, and victorious in battle" for a long time. On the one hand, "maintenance" involves conducting systematic and periodic upkeep of key equipment such as hole-opening machines, sealing devices, and hydraulic pump stations, ensuring their mechanical accuracy, sealing performance, and operational safety. On the other hand, the optimization of "power" focuses on how to enable the equipment, especially the intelligent sealing devices that have their own power sources, to complete the most stable and long-lasting sealing tasks with the minimum energy consumption. Understanding and implementing the combination of these two aspects is the key to ensuring the success of the operation and reducing long-term costs. 02 Precision Maintenance: Establishing the Foundation for Equipment Reliability The pressure-sealing equipment is constantly exposed to harsh conditions of high pressure, corrosion and heavy load. Any minor malfunction could lead to a major accident during operation. Therefore, it is crucial to establish a systematic maintenance procedure. The following are the key maintenance points summarized based on industry practice. • After daily tasks: Clean and inspect promptly After each construction, the oil stains, dirt and residual media on the exterior of the equipment must be cleaned immediately. Especially for the exposed transmission components (such as screws and nuts) and the sealing contact surfaces, after cleaning, lubricating grease should be applied for rust prevention. At the same time, check whether the key components such as the opening cutter, blocking rod guiding mechanism, etc. are worn or damaged. • Regular deep maintenance: Disassembly and comprehensive lubrication The industry recommends that a comprehensive disassembly and maintenance should be carried out once every 30 operations or every 6 months, regardless of the frequency of equipment usage. All internal parts should be cleaned, inspected, and worn parts replaced. Each moving part should be fully lubricated. This deep maintenance can effectively prevent sudden failures caused by internal deposits or poor lubrication. Maintenance after special operating conditions After completing operations involving high temperatures (such as steam pipelines) or handling corrosive media (such as ammonia water, acid solutions), the sealing elements of the equipment will age more rapidly. To eliminate the risk of leakage, relevant sealing components such as O-rings and sealing gaskets must be replaced compulsorily after the operation. • Transportation and storage: Prevent accidental damage The reliability of the equipment begins in the non-operational state. During transportation and handling, special packaging boxes must be used to prevent damage to the precision components from collisions. When stored for a long time, special protective measures should be taken for vulnerable parts such as the extended parts of the shaft, and they should be placed in a dry environment. 03 Intelligent Upgrade: Cutting-edge Technologies for Power Optimization and Energy Saving Control As pipelines evolve towards higher pressures, larger diameters, and complex environments such as undersea conditions, intelligent sealing devices within the pipes have become a new technological trend. These devices are equipped with batteries or hydraulic power, and their "power" management - that is, how to achieve longer battery life and more stable sealing with limited carried energy - has become the technical pinnacle. The challenge lies in the fact that when the sealing device operates in a high-pressure pipeline, it will experience intense fluid-solid coupling vibrations within the pipeline. These vibrations not only exacerbate the damage to the equipment and the pipeline itself, but also waste a considerable amount of energy, thereby shortening the operational window. The response strategy involves both "damping" and "energy saving" measures. By designing the end face structure of the occluder with special spoilers and using a neural network prediction model for active control, researchers can effectively disperse the wake vortices and significantly reduce the vibration intensity. With the vibration reduced, the energy required to maintain the occlusion state naturally decreases significantly. Further breakthroughs are manifested in energy recovery and intelligent control. The advanced in-line intelligent plugger has begun to be equipped with an energy recovery hydraulic control system. This system can recover and store some of the kinetic energy or pressure difference energy during the operation of the plugger, and release and utilize it when needed, forming an internal energy circulation. In terms of control strategies, advanced algorithms such as fuzzy PID control have been applied to speed regulation and energy-saving devices. Compared with traditional control methods, it can achieve precise control with nearly zero overshoot, providing a faster response and better dynamic performance, thereby avoiding energy waste. Even some studies have utilized deep reinforcement learning methods to enable the system to autonomously learn the optimal energy management strategies under complex conditions, and to identify the best coordination mode between the hydraulic pump and the accumulator. As a result, the intelligent optimization of the system's working pressure and the minimization of energy consumption have been achieved. 04 Practical Integration: Developing Comprehensive Maintenance and Power Management Plans for the System Ultimately, the theory needs to be translated into actionable plans. For equipment users or service providers, it is necessary to combine traditional maintenance practices with cutting-edge power optimization concepts. Digitalization of equipment archives is fundamental. For each core piece of equipment, an electronic record is established, detailing the parameters of each operation, maintenance details, and component replacement records. This not only enables the planning of preventive maintenance but also provides data support for analyzing the energy consumption trend of the equipment and assessing the necessity of upgrading and renovation (such as installing energy-saving devices).