Long Distance Thermal Grouting For Underground Electric Utilities is Advanced the Next Two Levels

Orange Beach, Alabama- 2012;  Record 6131 LF Thermal Grout*
BC Hydro VCCT, Vancouver, BC- 2011;  Record Uncased Bore*
Austin/Davenport Horizontal Directional Drilling, Austin, Texas- The First
Ambassador Gateway, Detroit, Michigan
Colorado Springs Utility, Colorado- multiple crossings
Platte River Power Authority, Longmont, CO- multiple crossings
BGE, Maryland- multiple crossings

Contact Guy at   guy@cgllc.us  or 410-484-0672

*Orange Beach, AL (Wolf Bay)- 2012 NASTT Honorable Mention New Project

* VCCT- NASTT Paper of the Year 2012

APPROACH:

1. Meet or exceed all engineering and operational requirements
2. Use local vendors and equipment to minimize costs
3. Develop complete submittal package, mix design; operational plan
4. Provide 20 plus years of grouting expertise
5. Help Contractors self-perform to substantially reduce costs over subcontracting
6. Provide full-time onsite quality control and project management during grouting
7. Independent lab testing for accurate and unbiased results
8. Develop accurate cost and schedule estimates

Constellation Group LLC has now completed over 20 major underground utility thermal grouting projects in the United States and Canada.  Thermal grouting is designed to dissipate heat from the electrical conduits, increasing efficiency and insulation lifespan and reducing long term cost. The project list grows:

Orange Beach, Alabama- (Wolf Bay) working with Southeast Directional Drilling, CGLLC successfully thermal grouted the longest electric utility casing- 6131 feet (or 1870 meters).  This was a cased water-filled bore, 36 inches in diameter with five 10 inch and one 8 inch conduits. Nearly 670 cubic yards of grout were placed in two grouting days.  It just gets longer and longer. 115KV, 1000A.  Also the longest continuous XLPE cable project for its size.

BC Hydro, Vancouver, BC  the first major uncased, drill mud filled HDD bore successfully grouted for 230KV transmission.  810 meters long, 1.1 meters in diameter, 410 cubic meters of thermal grout.  This is the first time CGLLC worked with the Owner and Engineer (BC Hydro and Golder Associates) during the design phase and then the contractor (Michels Canada).  This widely watched project is another world class standard grouting project completed by CGLLC.  This project was Runner-Up for NASTT Project of the Year. 

Austin, TX  2 each 2000 foot 30 inch diameter conduits-in-casing.  Approximately 365 cubic yards of specialized thermal grout.  This set the standard for all other projects.

Detroit, MI  2 each 450 foot conduits-in-casing.  Approximately 150 cubic yards placed in one day of thermal grout

Colorado Springs Utility, CO  950, 850, 500, 450, 400 foot conduit-in-casings 600 cubic yards of thermal grout.  115KV

Platte River Power Authority, Longmont, CO  working with Gabes Construction, completed 7 jack and bore grouting operations (from 100 to 200 feet)  230KV

CGLLC has demonstrated that long distance thermal grouting for heat dissipation can be accomplished.  Using proven project management skills and thorough planning, all of these projects were finished on schedule.  Thermal reisistivity (rho) is typically .50-.80 range for set moisture content, depending on grout design.

Read about Austin TX at: Trenchless Technology May 2007 (From A Deep Hole to Success) and Transmission and Distribution World Magazine January 2008 (Thermal Grouting Goes the Distance). A general discussion is in Underground Construction Magazine, December 2010.  All three earlier projects are discussed in a paper written for Underground Construction Technology International Conference 2010 'Long-Distance Thermal Grouting of Underground Conduits-in-Casing'.  The VCCT thermal grouting project was presented at NASTT 2012: Thermal Grouting of BC Hydro's VCCT Project.  Orange Beach (Wolf Bay) was presented at both UCT 2013 and NASTT 2013: Record Setting Installation of 1.2 mile 115kV Electrical Transmission Line Under Intracoastal Waterway

 Some basic facts about thermal grout and FTBs:

• FTBs or Fluidized Thermal Backfills are designed for open cut trenches and are likely not to be suitable for pumping into cased or uncased bores
• Thermal Grout or FTB Mix Designs from one area of the country are not likely to produce similar TR results in other areas (even same manufacturers)
• Materials used in Thermal Grouts and FTBs should be tested from the planned supplier(s)
• Flowable grouts are not necessarily pumpable grouts (and the reverse can true as well).  A thermal grout should be tested for all its required parameters- engineering and constructability

Click on the photos to enlarge:

    BC Hydro- looking from David Lam Park across False Creek to residential Vancouver- over 800 meters- more than 1/2 mile

   Working in Downtown Vancouver- this grouting operation went smoothly

    Vancouver Ready Mix set up a plant at a nearby warehouse to supply the sophisticated thermal grout for this project

  This a full scale mock-up section for Austin, Transmission casing without the  3" grout pipes. These high quality bore spacers, designed with grouting in mind are from Underground Devices, Inc. (www.udevices.com) Contact Dave or Chris for more information (847-205-9000)

   On site grout plant. All grout was mixed at this location and trucked to the other ends of the pipelines in different phases.  Continuous quality control was absolutely required to maintain consistent batches.

  Look for this water truck in the next photo

  Austin, TX.  This is the entire work site.  The water truck is under the left side of the bridge.  There were no interruptions to the golf course or the highway.

This is how a basic thermal grout for short bores (less than 750 feet) should look-  click on the picture to watch the video. Two grouts with similar mix designs from two manufacturers had different TRs.  Always test your mix design for TR.  This grout has the consistency of loose oatmeal and a TR of 0.5 at 2% moisture.