News and Articles

During the recent downturn in the Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) market, equipment manufacturers focused on research and have introduced a number of innovations. Nowhere has this been more evident than amongst manufacturers of HDD locating systems. In particular, the documentation of an increasing number of parameters concerning the drilling process has been a focus of development. Additionally, the capability to successfully carry out a wide range of project specifications with the same locating system has been made a priority. This paper will describe the DigiTrak® Eclipse® locating system’s various features and will use short project summaries as examples. Particular emphasis will be placed on gravity sewer installations; project mapping and documentation; down hole drilling fluid pressure; load monitoring and documentation; and magnetic guidance system operations. It is the intent of the author to demonstrate the level to which modern locating systems have risen and to help educate project planners and owners about some of the various HDD projects successfully undertaken in recent years.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita left in their wake considerable damage to water and wastewater systems in the affected areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. While federal, state and local officials are working diligently to assess the overall damage, a comprehensive evaluation of the damage to wastewater systems is not available. To meet this need, the Water Environment Federation (WEF), members working for utilities, and private companies are collaborating with global engineering, consulting and construction company Black & Veatch to develop and present an area-wide assessment of the damage and probable cost to rehabilitate or replace wastewater systems in the Gulf States.

Investment boom in Europe At the trade fair and convention WASSER BERLIN 2006 from 3 to 7 April 2006 international experts will be focusing on issues of disposal of drinking water and waste water. At the same time the Berlin Exhibition Grounds will also be hosting the trade fair GAS BERLIN. Approximately 700 exhibitors and a total of 60,000 visitors from around 60 countries are expected to attend the two trade fairs, the convention and the interactive trade show "WASSerLEBEN".

The cooperation-project "LernBau" is about safety and health for the workers on building sites. Under the scientific direction of the University of Bremen, the building enterprises, building owners, the labour inspectorate, and the employees liability insurance association for the building industry are trying to develop comprehensive concepts for more safety on the building sites by considering the interests of all project partners. The project from the "Bremer Landesprogramm Arbeit und Technik" is financed and promoted by the European Union and the senator for work, women, health, youth and social action.

NDT Systems & Services AG, Stutensee, Germany has introduced a further addition to its highly-successful range of LineExplorer in-line inspection tools. The tools, incorporating a new generation of electronics, make use of the company’s proven modular design, and are available in crack-, as well as metal-loss, inspection configurations.

The successful international No-Dig Conference in Rotterdam has just ended and the developers of UNITRACC have arrived back home with the No-Dig Award in their luggage, but they are already busy preparing for the next international event. The repeatedly awarded web-based platform for information, learning and working in sewer and pipeline construction will be presented on the 2006 No-Dig Show in Nashville (USA).

The use of plastic materials for repair and replacement of sewer inspection chambers is rapidly increasing in popularity. The reason for utilising plastic materials in place of traditional concrete products is because modern plastics offer superior performance characteristics in typical sewer environments. Nearly one third of the existing inspection chambers are defective and of about 9 million manholes in Germany approximately 2,7 to 4,5 million are in need of rehabilitation. "There will be a great need for investments in the next few years", says Heiko Leihbecher from REHAU.

Finally, the time has come! The uniquely extensive compendium by University-Professor Dr.-Ing. Dietrich Stein "Trenchless Technology for Installation of Cables and Pipelines", which has received attention and is highly appreciated among experts, was translated into English for the international market and was published in September. It comprises 15 chapters with a total of 748 pages, 845 figures and 307 tables.

In a ceremonial event as a prelude to the 23rd International NO-DIG Conference in Rotterdam on 19 September the NO-DIG Award was awarded by the ISTT, the International Society for Trenchless Technology for extraordinary projects in the field of sewer- and pipeline construction.

The Beckerich-Huttange-Nordange main collecting system in Luxemburg, which Weiland Bau S.à.r.l. is constructing on behalf of the Syndicat Intercommunal de Dépollution des Eaux Résiduaires de l’Ouest (SIDERO), is about 3,300 m long. In addition to the new collecting system – a corrugated sheath measuring DN/OD 315 to 400 mm – a district heating pipeline and a duct for an optical fibre cable are also being laid in the trench in a single work process. To protect the ground of what is mainly grazing land, the contracted company is using about 500 running metres of Site Road from Emunds+Staudinger. This satisfies the client’s brief as well as the needs of the affected farmers, for it eliminates extensive soil extraction and removal, as required for the construction of a conventional site road of crushed rock. The temporary Site Road is quickly and easily laid. Owing to their optimum load distribution, the 2.4 m long and 3.8 m wide elements protect the ground effectively from destruction and compaction by construction vehicles.

Emunds+Staudinger has developed a new generation of pipe-ramming systems. BPU 800 is the name of the latest power pack, a further development of the BPU 600/800. Worth mentioning are its technical data. Its torque has been raised from 15,000 N to 27,000 N and its thrust from 85 to the present 132 t. However, by comparison with the huge boost to performance, the growth in dimensions of the new pipe-ramming unit, with an increase in length and breadth of only 30 cm, is modest. The system has now been used for the first time on a civil engineering project in Wellin in Belgium. And with success: Despite difficult soil conditions, the ramming of a 15 m long steel pipe, DN/OD 600, beneath a road proceeded to the complete satisfaction of the client and contracted company. Equally remarkable is the fact that the ramming work for the new drinking water pipe took only two days, inclusive of set-up and dismantling.

Not only were ground conditions difficult and the water table high, but also tunneling under an excavated canal with banks higher than the surrounding land required exceptional safety measures.

The Herrenknecht EPB Shield S-300 is the world’s largest TBM with truly unique features in terms of engineering. To master the world’s largest excavation diameter in challenging ground conditions, Herrenknecht engineers developed a so far unique cutting wheel concept especially for this project. It consists of a 7m-diameter central cutting wheel and an outer cutting wheel, located on the same level, with a maximum excavation diameter of 15.20m.

A hydraulically heavily stressed storm sewer DN 1200, requiring an urgent rehabilitation, but lying in the middle of a main road with several lanes and even in ground water: a horrific constellation in front of which stood the hanseWasser Bremen GmbH in 2004. But for the SAERTEX®-LINER System and the sewer rehabilitation specialists of Hans Brochier GmbH & Co. KG this case was a good opportunity to prove the efficiency of the hose relining procedure with "glass fibre reinforced plastic by means of steam hardening" in accessible nominal widths. Sewer damage under heavy traffic load

The natural water basin "River Jucar Basin", with a surface of almost 22,500km², is located in the East of the Iberian Peninsula. It comprises the autonomous regions Castilla-La Mancha, Communidad Valenciana and Aragon. Beside important rivers such as the "Jucar", used for the supply of drinking water, the region has abundant groundwater resources.

The National Research Council of Canada (NRC), with the financial support of the American Water Works Association Research Foundation (AwwaRF) has developed a new fuzzy-based approach to model the deterioration of large buried pipes using scarce data.