Polk County Utilities, Florida Awards Contract to Electro Scan Inc. For Sewer Force Main Condition Assessment Project
Concrete Mortar Lined Coated 20" Diameter Pressurized Force Main Inspected Using Award Winning Tethered-Based Non-Acoustic Machine-Intelligent In-Pipe Probe
Electro Scan Inc. today announced the contract award by Polk County, Florida, to conduct an inspection survey of the County's 20-inch diameter wastewater force main. The force main is critical to the the County's wastewater collection system representing its main artery line.
The wastewater flows by gravity to low points in the collection system. From there, it is collected in lift stations where it is conveyed through the force main to the treatment facility.
A recent single-point failure of the force main prompted the County to investigate the integrity of this critical piece of infrastructure, including determining how much concrete has been lost inside of the pipe exposing the ductile iron host pipe to corrosive gases from wastewater effluent inside of the pipe.
Electro Scan will be providing an assessment of the existing coating and corrosion levels in the force main and survey about 3,300 LF of pipe.
"We evaluated other technologies but chose Electro Scan Inc since the evaluation can be done while keeping the force main in service," commented Holden Wright, PE, Capital Project Manager, Polk County, Florida.
Electro Scan Inc. has been contracted to perform turnkey project services, including the installation of hot taps, Electro Scan non-acoustic surveying, reporting, and project management. Electro Scan is hiring Rangeline Group, a respected contractor in Polk County, to install selected hot taps and complete any excavations, if needed.
Force mains are often equipped with insertion and retrieval stations to facilitate entry and exits of cleaning equipment.
In most cases, insertion facilities are located within the lift station with a removal station located at the discharge point, with longer force mains having multiple insertion points.
Ductile iron, high density polyethylene, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) are the most frequently used materials for sewer force mains.
Force main condition assessment is complicated by the fact that they do not have redundant systems or bypasses, and therefore cannot easily be taken out of service for internal inspection.
CCTV inspection is difficult if not impossible because heavy effluent makes camera images opaque.
Since force mains are rarely taken off-line, dye testing, ground penetrating radar, lasers, LIDR, and sonar, are not advised.
Acoustic free-flowing sensors or balls have been also used. But lost balls, the potential risk of obstruction or getting loose balls stuck in pipes or pumps, false-positive readings from balls repeatedly hitting the pipe wall, and poor data repeatability, have limited actionable data.
Electro Scan's success in assessing gravity sewer mains for infiltration and corrosion, combined with their expansion into pressurized pipes, across multiple pipe materials, allowed key advantages to assess the condition of the wastewater force mains.
ABOUT ELECTRO SCAN
Electro Scan Inc., is a leading supplier of machine-intelligent pipeline assessment sensors, products and services for the water & wastewater pipeline market. Developing proprietary pipe condition assessment equipment and delivering field services, the Company also provides cloud-based applications that automatically locate, measure, and report leaks typically not found by legacy inspection methods. Entirely self-funded, the company is a leading provider of CleanTech solutions providing needed Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) asset stewardship.