Ahmedabad: Here at last freedom from trenches that the citizens are digging to replace old underground public works in Ahmedabad. The new trenchless technology enables civil engineers from Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to repair underground utilities – much like surgeons performing a keyhole or non-invasive surgery to heal a damaged vessel or artery. A team of engineers from Italy and a local company are replacing a sufficiently long sewer pipe in Guptanagar. The technology is used in the walled city and western zone areas like Navrangpura, Vadaj, University, where underground utilities are at least 30 years old.
In this method, a special resin, a petroleum product, is first treated with a chemical called Trigonox to form long sheets of polyester. This polyester felt is then carefully inserted into the damaged pipe. A temperature between 15 degrees and 25 degrees is kept on the surface by treating it with ice cubes so that the polyester does not harden during the assembly process. It takes up to 12 hours for a single injection. As soon as the polyester film is inserted into the desired damaged tube, this film is blown in the next step – similar to a balloon angioplasty for cardiac patients. “The only difference is that the sheet metal is blown in the old pipe with water at a temperature of up to 80 degrees Celsius. The sheet metal then takes on the shape of the damaged pipe and forms a completely new pipe inside, ”says a high-ranking AMC official. In the 2012 financial year, 13 AMC carried out the sewer rehabilitation with trenchless technology using the segment method made of glass fiber reinforced plastics (GRP) on city lines between Balwantrai Hall and Bhairvanath in Maninagar.
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