Vicente Munoz, an engineer employed by ACSA Barcelona and a member of the French Sorigué Group, is responsible for maintenance of the water supply network in the Spanish coastal city. A pioneer in trenchless pipe rehabilitation, Mr Munoz and his team installed a Tubetex liner on 25 September 1991. A 210 m reinforced concrete drinking water pipe below Passeig Sant Gervasi in Barcelona was the first in Europe to be renewed by this method.
Twenty years later, and only 7 km from the first construction site in 1991, Mr Munoz – still a staunch supporter of trenchless rehabilitation – worked together with engineers from Sekisui SPR Europe (SSPRE) in June 2011 on the rehabilitation of a 600 m water pipeline in the middle of a residential area.
Tubetex rehabilitation in 2011
ACSA rehabilitated the circular profile in DN500 mm with a special version of Tubetex by SSPRE. In order to withstand external pressure in exceptional cases, the seamlessly-woven pipe liner, made of polyester yarn, was reinforced by a felt layer inserted into the Tubetex prior to installation. The severely encrusted old pipe was first of all prepared for inversion by high-pressure cleaning, and then the material combination was saturated in situ with resin.
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The rapid pace of the construction was due to the pressure drum inversion and the project took only three weeks to complete in six phases.
Mr Munoz said “Again we opted for the Tubetex liner for this project, because it is easily capable of withstanding the internal pressures of 10 bar anticipated here and significantly reduces friction on the inside walls, resulting in less depressurisation overall.
“After all, it has proven its quality over a period of more than 20 years and has never failed us over this time.”
Product with a long history
Initiated in 1985, with the support of the University of Liège, located in Belgium, the Tubetex liner was developed with the common goal to manufacture a product for renewing gas and water pressure lines.
Only one year later the first liner was manufactured in the Belgian factory, which still serves as a Tubetex production facility.
In April 1987 the product became marketable after intensive tests and research, not to mention numerous trials, in impregnation and was initially supplied in diameters of 300–800 mm. In 1990, following considerable demand for the initial product, the second weaving loom for diameters 300–400 mm was taken into operation.
In the following years the Tubetex was perfected and installation with the pressure drum was professionalised. The improvements of the coating for rehabilitation of oil and gas pipelines were the principal development stages.
Tubetex was the first product of Sekisui NordiTube and the starting shot for an excellent track record, and keeps urban water network infrastructure intact.
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