Trenchless Engineering Conference Held in Poland

The 10th International Conference, Exhibition and Technology Shows — TRENCHLESS ENGINEERING 2012 — took place June 13-15 in Zawiercie, Poland.

This year’s event, organized by the Wydawnictwo Inżynieria sp. z o.o. publishing house, was joined by over than 220 registered participants. This is the biggest event on trenchless technology in Poland. 

The conference was attended not only by the representatives of construction, production or design companies, but also providers of equipment, investors and academic representatives. At the opening, Paweł Kośmider, chief editor of Trenchless Engineering magazine welcomed all the conference guests. Conference session included: problems and issues on the industry, no-dig construction and trenchless technologies in water and wastewater projects.

All the speeches and presentations were very interested to the participants and the conference sessions were. Discussion issues included: current problems of water supply and sewage systems industry; effectiveness of the application trenchless technology in the transport infrastructure development; large sewers — construction, operation and maintenance — experience from research and testing; comparative analysis of water supply network construction using trenchless technologies; groundwater infiltration in brick interceptors; failure frequency studies as the basis for preliminary assessment of technical state of water supply networks; the problem of technical rehabilitation of sewer connections.

Trenchless Technology publisher Bernard Krzys gave a presentation about development of trenchless technologies in the last 20 years. This year there were organized two discussion panels: one of them concentrated on construction of gas networks with using trenchless technology and the second was devoted to trenchless technologies in rehabilitation of gravity lines.
In 2011, the Wydawnictwo Inżynieria organized its first Poland HDD Rodeo and in 2012, organized a second one. There were three companies that participated in the competition. The winner was Przedsiębiorstwo ATMA Sławomir Siedlaczek. Another competition in Zawiercie was Impact Moling Rodeo — also a first such an event in Poland. The winning company of this contest was Terma Technologie sp. z o.o.

The highlight of the conference program is the Evening Gala and TYTAN Awards. The TYTAN statue was given in six categories. Winners were: Project of the Year–New Installation, Przedsiębiorstwo Robót Górniczych “Metro” sp. z o.o. for construction of sewage carrying system from the left bank section of Warsaw to “Czajka” Sewage Treatment Plant Stage II. This project involved a siphon inlet chamber approximately 40 m deep and has a circular shape, outside diameter of 22 m, crossing under the Vistula River in pipelines 2 x ND1600, L = 1300 m in a tunnel with outside diameter 4.5 m, the TBM SLURRY TYPE construction technology — employed first time in Poland; Project of the Year–Renovation , Consortium with INFRA S.A. Company as a leader for trenchless refurbishment of 7,831 running m of sanitary sewage system as part of the project that involved the modernization of water supply network and sanitary sewage system in the City of Nowy Sącz. The project included: 180 wells and sewage chambers, 433 m of ND500 pipelines, 418 m of ND600, 6,282 m of ND800, 445 m of ND1000, 183.5 m of 600 x 900 mm; European Project in Trenchless Technologies, Epping Spezialtiefbau and HABA-BETON Johann Bartlechner KG for performing two rammings: one at the distance 950 m in both directions (including two curves), the other 600 m long. The pipe supplier built an open-air factory to prefabricate 1,550 m of reinforced concrete pipes DN3200, DA4100 with wall thickness 450 mm. 412 pipes were manufactured all together; Small Trenchless Project, ZRB Janicki for making of rock drillings in Bielsko-Biała for the purposes of HDPE gas piping installation, diameter 315 mm and length 215 m. The piping was installed in rock conditions in mudstones characterized by crushing strength up to 30 MPa using a mud motor and hole openers; Product of the Year, Herrenknecht AG for first in Poland TBM disc cutter – Mixshield OD 5350 mm, used in the Siphon under the Vistula River project to make a crossing of sanitary interceptors under the Vistula River running to “Czajka” Sewage Treatment Plant; Company of the Year, Przedsiębiorstwo Robót Górniczych “Metro” sp. z o.o.
The last statue of TYTAN was dedicated to Professor Cezary Madryas Ph.D., D.Sc. from Wrocław University of Technology. This award is for his contribution to the development of trenchless technologies.

The next edition of TRENCHLESS ENGINEERING Conference will be organized in June 2013.