Water Jet Unblocking Steel Pipe Full of Concrete
Hydroblast was called out this week to a job requiring unblocking steel pipe which was full of 40 Nm concrete strength. Our client for this operation is one of the latest large Sewerage Treatment Improvement Schemes in Yorkshire so you can understand their need for our services.
When the concrete contractor had placed the Formwork and Concrete Shuttering, they had omitted to placing a plug in the end of the pipe. The use of this plug had resulted in the concrete finding its way down the pipe between the Sludge Digestion tank and the dryer. As a result the steel pipe was blocked for 4.25m .
The problem had been found some 4 months previously and instead of taking action then, the civils contractor allowed the concrete to harden. Core drilling had proved inadequate, so water jetting was the only appropriate method left.
Hydroblast deployed its Power Pack with 700 horse power, 1000 bar pressure and 260 litres of water giving a breakout reaction force of 1900 Nms. From this we used a special rotating nozzle, which has been specifically designed to cut concrete, which emptied the pipe of the concrete and any additional debris.
This task took Hydroblast around 20 hours to successfully complete. Within the sewerage industry all pipes are vital to the overall running of the business. Despite the error in leaving the pipe blocked for such a long period of time, Hydroblast’s quick and effective approach proved to be a more time efficient and budget friendly alternative to having to replace the entire pipe.
At the end of our task we asked our client for some feedback. We love to receive feedback from all of our customers to ensure that they are happy with our service and if there was any areas in which we need to improve on. In this particular project our customer signed off our paperwork with an additional comment ‘brilliant service’.
