The Origins of Hydrolaze: How Industry Terminology Evolved in Pipe Cleaning Technology

Recently someone asked what is the difference between Hydrolaze and Aqualaze and after an extended commentary the author concluded for the audience that there was no technical difference, just branding.  While we at PSI agree with that sentiment, we would not have wasted the reader’s time.  On the other hand, we thought the readers might be interested to know the origins of not just these two terms but also the other terms, aquamilling and hydromilling, that were created to convey the same definition.   

The use of rotating hose devices with high pressure water began to proliferate in the 1990’s as a better alternative to rotating nozzles that are designed to be centered in the pipe. To that end there any many forms of water blasting used to accomplish different cleaning tasks. Originally the RHD technique was designed to cut through material such as petrol coke and flush it out.  The drilling type application was very effective at cutting into materials. It became a mill scale application for the first at the Titan Methanol project in Trinidad when an engineer looking for anything to recapture lost schedule inquired as to the effectiveness of this method on mill scale in the pre-commissioning phase of the project. The outcome was a great success and new application, and market was developed. The company that did that work originally called the method Aquamilling and they obtained the copyright and trademark.  

As the demand increased and EPC’s sought alternatives, more companies began to adopt this method.   One of those companies was Pipe Services International. However, the company with the copyright and trademark refused to allow the EPCs to use the term in their Requests for Quotations unless they agreed that other companies could not claim to have the technology.   One of the companies that had developed out of this decided to use the term Hydromilling. 

Pipe Services International, along with one of its clients, out of caution for infringement accusations, developed another term called Hydrolaze.  PSI determined that it was paramount to have an industry term that distinguished the difference so it neither sought a copyright or trademark but rather set out to set the standard in the application. Many companies were concerned about the similarity between Aquamilling and Hydromilling and as PSI’s performance exceeded all others, the term Hydrolaze became the global definition.

Years later, sitting a meeting in another part of the world that PSI had not yet performed work, meeting with people that PSI had never known, the entire conversation was centered about the Hydrolaze application. In fact, even the proper definition of the term was stated which is the use of High Pressure Water at 50 gallons per minute using a rotating hose device that allows the cleaning nozzle to rotate along the inner diameter of pipe (reducing the distance between the expulsion and the surface being cleaned to zero) and is able to navigate multiple directional changes up to fifteen through elbows and tees while traveling distances up to 1,500 feet in a single pass flushing all of the effluent and debris back to designated drainage points. Any other type of high-pressure cleaning especially centering nozzles do not meet this definition because without these parameters it cannot effectively clean mill scale on large bore pipe. Years later, in effort to jump on the wave another group bought some equipment and came up with the term aqualaze as marketing gimmick to insinuate that there was a difference.  Now years later that group came forward to tell you that in fact there is no difference. 

This is how the term Aquamilling morphed into Hydromilling and Hydrolaze and then Aqualaze.  In our opinion, aquamilling is the best of these terms but Hydrolaze in part to the quality efforts of PSI over the years has become the accepted definition that the industry uses.   

At Pipe Services International, we don’t just use or invent the terms, we define them.  Now we are defining the terms planning, efficiency, quality and integrity and not just for Hydrolaze but from pre-commissioning Engineering to Operations.  If you would like us to show the new standard, please contact us at [email protected]