Project of the Year – Rehabilitation Honorable Mentions

Granville Gorge Water Main Replacement Using Pipe Bursting

The project consisted of 5,400 ft of 14-in. cast iron pipe to be replaced with 16-in. DIPS HDPE pipe along the Granville Gorge in Granville, Mass. At one time, the pipe used to carry water from a reservoir in Granville to the City of Westfield. The pipe was eventually abandoned in favor of deep water wells in Westfield. Due to expense, an effort to re-establish the water draw from the reservoir is under way. The original pipe was installed in 1898 and the pipe path was cut out of rock sidewall of the gorge. The rugged terrain and difficult access ruled out open-cut with large equipment. Determination that the pipe was only covered by loose fill material and not solid rock trench made pipe bursting the pipe replacement option. Pipe bursting proved to be even more effective and efficient than initially thought. It was initially thought that the existing pipe was installed in 13-ft sections. With that length of pipe, only so much grade and bend can be achieved. It was discovered that in certain sections that the existing pipe had been cut down in to 4-ft sections, along for significant turns, beyond the capability of the bursting rods. RH White decided to install bursting rods through the host pipe as far as they could until they were met with resistance. This identified where the bends were and where excavation was needed, creating much longer runs that reached lengths of 700 ft.

Reading, Pa., System Capacity Upgrade with Relining

In spring 2014, the City of Reading, Pa., needed to upgrade the capacity of a force main running beneath the Schuylkill River and install a new twin line. Working with Entech Engineers, the City devised a solution with a multi-faceted approach. First, PACT Construction installed a new 42-in. pipeline beneath the river using horizontal directional drilling, with this pipe now serving as the new main line. Next, the length of the existing 400-ft, 36-in. steel pipe force main was to be rehabilitated to provide a fully structural solution using two separate methods due to two 45-degree bends in the system. The straight portion of the pipeline was rehabbed using Insituform’s InsituMain system, which is a fiber-reinforced CIPP liner for pressurized pipe. The 45-degree bends were rehabbed by Fibrwrap using the Tyfo product, which is a fiber-reinforced polymer that adds structural strength. The Tyfo product was applied by the technicians by hand inside the pipe. The existing rehabilitated line now serves as a standby tie-in system and doubled the capacity of the system as a whole. At 36 in. in diameter, the rehabbed line is among the largest diameter rehabilitations in North America using the InsituMain product.

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