Interflow Awards
Road collapses and pot-holes caused by broken drainage pipes are always expensive to repair. As well as the obvious cost of digging and replacing the pipe, its surroundings and the road surface, there is the hidden cost of disruption to the community while the work is undertaken.
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In NSW, the Roads and Traffic Authority provided the optimum solution to the problem of repairing a failing corrugated steel drain by using Rib Loc Expanda Pipe.
The Problem:
Bulli Pass, a heavily trafficked road between Sydney and Wollongong, was facing collapse as the pavement suddenly began to subside above a stormwater drain.
The subsidence was occurring because a corrugated steel drain 470mm in diameter had worn away in the invert, through a combination of corrosion and abrasion. Stormwater flow had washed backfill into the drain, causing subsidence at the road surface. An immediate solution was necessary if total road closure was to be avoided. Digging up and replacing the pipe would have caused long and expensive hold ups to traffic using the road.
The Solution:
Rib Loc Expanda Pipe provides an "as new" pipeline between access chambers, designed to fully support all applied loads. It can be designed assuming the deteriorated pipe has no remaining strength.
Expanda Pipe is installed from an existing access chamber, without needing costly or disruptive excavation.
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The Project:
Interflow repaired the deteriorated pipe by installing the structural liner in under 4 hours, with the road still in service. The liner was wound into the pipe by the winding machine in the access chamber at one end of the line and expanded by mechanical means to match the internal diameter of the deteriorated pipe.
Cementitious grout was then pumped around the outside of the liner to fill the corrugations and so stabilise the deteriorated pipe.
The pipeline was able to go back into service immediately. Traffic flow was not held up by the pipe repair process and no inconvenience was caused to the local community.
The convenience and cost effectiveness of Rib Loc Expanda Pipe provides an incentive to Authorities to repair pipelines before they deteriorate to such a state that safety becomes an issue.