The new visitor centre extends from the Capitol Building to the Library of Congress. During the construction eleven 4 inch vertical galvanised electrical conduits were installed. The purpose of these conduits was to supply a series of electrical wires 40 inches underground to power a series of security and other electrical equipment within the Capitol visitor centre (CVC).

Shortly after the installation of the conduits, groundwater started to seep in at the joints. This created serious problems for the CVC. First, the groundwater was infiltrating the roof where the conduits entered the building, which was causing discolouration within the ceiling tiles. Secondly, the wires that were encased by the galvanised conduits were at risk of damage from the groundwater and could fail at any time, which could have shut down the CVC security system.

Finally, due to the sensitivity of the area absolutely no excavation was possible. The vault that housed all eleven conduits was no more than a hundred yards from the actual Capitol Building.

Solution

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Dynamic Drain Technologies, out of Virginia Beach, Virginia, was approached by the general contractor to come up with a solution to fix the problem.

Dynamic Drain had to come up with an application to stop the water infiltration without disrupting the Capitol grounds with any excavation. A time frame of less than three days was also in place once the project was started due to security, and the fact that the CVC was already open and was housing events each day.

A lightweight, fast pipelining system that would not create any harmful odours and would not disturb visitors was needed. Dynamic Drain went with their Perma-Liner™ pipelining technology.

This would allow them to install an epoxy felt liner within the broken conduits. The liner was a good idea because it barely reduced the initial diameter of the conduit and it would be a seamless, brand new structural pipe from end to end, says the company.

This allowed the electrical contractor to string new wires without the risk of getting caught on joints and stripping the wires. The Perma-Liner system allowed Dynamic Drain to install four liners a day in order to meet the CVC’s time requirement of three days. The 100 per cent solids epoxy created absolutely no alarming odours so the CVC was completed successfully and on time.