Solid-Liquid Flow Slurry Pipeline Transportation

by Edward J. Wasp, John P. Kenny, Ramesh L. Gandhi

224 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1977

About the author

Edward J. Wasp was an American engineer and inventor who developed long distance slurry pipelines for the transportation of coal and other solid materials. Wasp, born in New York City, earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Cooper Union, a master's degree in mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh, and an MBA from Golden Gate University. He began experimenting with coal slurries in a systematic manner when he worked for Consolidation Coal Company in the early 1950s. Wasp combined works of scientists and engineers and developed a model that related homogeneous and heterogeneous "flow characteristics" of slurry for the design of long-distance pipelines. He was in charge of the world's first long-distance coal pipeline, a 108-mile system within Ohio completed in 1957.
Wasp later became manager of the slurry systems department for the engineering firm Bechtel and executive vice president of Energy Transportation Systems, Inc. (ETSI). He received an Elmer A. Sperry Award in 1981 "for his contributions toward the development and application of long distance pipeline slurry transport of coal and other finely divided solid materials". In 1982, Pipeline called Wasp the "patron saint of slurry pipelines" and one of the leading slurry pipeline engineers in the world.