Skip to main content

Tracto-Technik’s the wa-ter go

Sub-contractors used equipment from Tracto- Technik to renew two sections of an old grey cast iron water transport pipe covering a total of 200m as part of a complete street restructure in Linz, Austria. In order to prevent any traffic chaos and potential loss of trade for shopkeepers on busy Haidfield Street, while, at the same time, ensuring that the pipe cross-section ND 400 and the hydraulic pipe remained intact, Linz AG Water Department sub-contractors Swietelski- Faber (SF) decided to apply the static
October 31, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Sub-contractors used equipment from Tracto- Technik to renew two sections of an old grey cast iron water transport pipe covering a total of 200m as part of a complete street restructure in Linz, Austria.

In order to prevent any traffic chaos and potential loss of trade for shopkeepers on busy Haidfield Street, while, at the same time, ensuring that the pipe cross-section ND 400 and the hydraulic pipe remained intact, Linz AG Water Department sub-contractors Swietelski- Faber (SF) decided to apply the static pipe bursting method to renew the pipes in three days over a recent weekend.

Using this method, pipes with the same size or larger pipes can be renewed in the same bore path. It is unusual to replace an old cast iron pipe with a new cast iron pipe of the same nominal size with the trenchless method, but it is possible and common with the pipe bursting method without any restrictions.

In order to burst the old cast iron pipe, to expand the bore channel and at the same time pull in the Duktus manufactured ductile iron pipe ND 400, obtaining a machine technology with tensile strengths was said to be crucial to SF’s chances of meeting its tight working deadline. A further requirement was the task of measuring and documenting the tensile strengths, as the pipes were only allowed to be strained up to 650 kN.

As a result, SF used 2738 Tracto-Technik’s (TT) GRUNDOBURST Type 1900 G with 1900 kN tensile strength pipe bursting system and the tensile strength measuring device GRUNDOLOG.

The measured and documented tensile forces were 500 kN, well below the permitted strains for the connection of the new pipe.

TT said the “exemplary co-operation” of all the companies involved in the project enabled the on-time completion of what was said to be one of the largest static pipe bursting method jobsite works ever undertaken in Austria.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Quality assured with asphalt testing equipment
    March 15, 2012
    Equipment for checking out the various qualities required of asphalt in road construction is becoming more sophisticated
  • Innovative formwork beats bridge design challenges
    February 14, 2012
    Companies are coming up with innovative formwork solutions to overcome "challenging" designs for bridges. Patrick Smith reports
  • The Lessons of the Genoa bridge collapse
    April 23, 2019
    The partial collapse of the Polcevera viaduct, better known as the Morandi Bridge, has prompted debate regarding the technical and administrative aspects of maintaining road infrastructures. We discussed it with the engineer Gabriele Camomilla, former Director of Research and Maintenance of the Società Autostrade, who coordinated the only major structural intervention performed on the bridge, carried out in the early 1990s
  • Key expressway route through Hunter Valley
    November 11, 2013
    Australia’s Hunter Valley will benefit from a new high speed expressway, which is currently under construction - Simon Gould reports Located two hours north of Sydney, the Hunter Valley region in New South Wales is one of Australia’s largest producers of coal and wine. With international demand, particularly from Asia, for both continuing to increase, a significant upgrade of infrastructure was required between the region and the port of Newcastle, the world’s largest coal export port. However the strict en