Use of Trenchless Technologies in Infrastructure Rehabilitation and Development

During the past few years, trenchless technologies have been gaining popularity in the area of buried infrastructure rehabilitation due to economic and environmental factors. The gap between infrastructure spending and needs , which was presented in the USEPA GAP report and was supported by the 2001 ASCE Report Card, prompted the need for non-traditional approaches to the rehabilitation of buried infrastructure assets. In addition, those technologies have been becoming more and more familiar to engineers and practitioners in the field as more projects are constructed. An analysis of selecting the most suitable construction method for the rehabilitation project will be presented. The Water and Sewer District of Clermont County, Ohio has implemented various trenchless technologies for both water and sewer projects. The projects varied from a water main river crossing, a main sewer trunk replacement in a creek, highway crossings, and water and sewer deteriorating pipes. This paper will discuss the replacement of a sewer trunk using microtunneling and the construction of a water distribution interconnection under a river using Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD). The respective trenchless technology was deemed the most suitable method over traditional methods of open cut for both projects. The County utilized a Geographic Information System (GIS) and a Supervisory Control & And Data Acquisition system (SCADA) to aid in the identification of needs, design efforts, and management of the infrastructure. The need for a decision support system to aid in the rehabilitation projects of buried infrastructure has become urgent as more of such systems proved to be beneficial. The role of GIS to select the appropriate construction method will be discussed. Data presented in this paper will aid in providing a strategy for the rehabilitation of water and sewer projects.