Page 20 - Gi flipbook April 2018

A REVOLUTION

IN BURIED PIPE

REPLACEMENT ALL IMAGES: STEP WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY

TORS Knowledge Transfer Day

Zero excavations and robots operating on buried assets in This approach would maximise
every UK street. It’s no longer science fiction, but reality, financial, societal and environmental
says Wez Little, Innovations Director at Synthotech benefits in areas of engineering and
environmental difficulty, such as busy
city centres and areas close to
orking in owners and operators to work on commuter routes. This all might sound
collaboration, buried assets without the need for like a utopian fantasy, but as the
Synthotech and digging holes, providing many academic and business sectors look
Cadent (previously significant benefits to stakeholders towards the future applications of
W National Grid Gas including reduced carbon footprint, robotics, it is looking increasingly
Distribution) had a shared vision to reduced costs and reduced impact to achievable. In fact, regulators,
find a new method for connecting PE road users, the general public and customers and asset owners are
services to PE mains, providing an businesses. Fewer holes dug would already requesting no-dig technologies.
alternative to digging holes. also mean improved safety in terms of The technological challenge was to
For decades, the utilities industry things such as cable strikes and develop a practical working system
has desired a way to enable network hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS). that would remotely make a

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