Trenchless Pipe Bursting
Growing urbanisation and the infrastructure demand that advances with it have become one of the biggest problems of modern cities. Especially where traffic and surface activity are intense, repair, renewal, capacity increase and similar work on infrastructure pipes is often patched with temporary fixes so as not to disrupt daily life. Trenchless pipe bursting, the trenchless alternative that answers this need, offers what can fairly be called miraculous solutions.
Infrastructure built on the planning of 20 years ago cannot keep pace with rapidly growing cities, and larger-capacity pipelines are needed every day. Yet repairing or replacing these lines, or increasing their diameter, used to require serious damage to the surface: closing the working area, excavating, renewing the line, backfilling, reinstating the pavement and dealing with the spoil. Very often, because one or more of these was impracticable, the project was cancelled or the solution postponed with temporary measures. Trenchless pipe bursting removes all of this trouble and allows these lines to be renewed — and even upsized — in remarkable time and at remarkable cost.
First a guide is pulled between the start and end points of the line to be renewed, controlled by the machine. Then, at the exit point, the bursting head that will destroy the old pipe, the connection and protection fittings and finally the new pipe are attached to the guide. As the machine pulls this assembly towards itself, the bursting head breaks the old pipe and compresses it into the surrounding ground while laying the new pipe in its place.
Using the old, inadequate pipe as a guide, the system destroys it with special equipment and installs the new one in its place. In the process, existing diameters can be increased by 10–45%.
Every type of pipe in use today can be renewed this way. For detailed information and consultancy, contact our project department.
Advantages and application conditions
The greatest advantage of trenchless pipe bursting is that it uses the route and depth of the existing line exactly as they are: no new route survey, no new excavation permits and no trench at the surface. The line is renewed with only entry and exit pits; road, pavement and landscape reinstatement costs disappear. Because the diameter can be increased by 10–45% in the same operation, sewer and water lines that have run out of capacity are upsized in a single pass. HDPE is usually chosen as the new pipe; being jointless and leak-tight, it also extends the service life of the line.
The method is applied to almost every pipe material, including cast iron, concrete, asbestos cement, PVC and steel; a cutting or expanding bursting head is chosen according to the material. Before the work the line must be inspected by camera, connections and service laterals mapped and distances to nearby utilities measured; the old pipe compressed into the ground must not damage neighbouring lines. On lines very close to the surface and in very stiff ground the upsizing ratio is limited accordingly.
Deltek carries out trenchless pipe bursting on sewer, water and natural gas lines for municipalities and water utilities with its Istanbul- and Izmir-based crews; the pre-renewal camera survey and feasibility study are included in the quotation. Where a completely new line is required, see the horizontal directional drilling and pipe jacking pages.
Talk to us about this.
0850 888 3585