Millennium Projects

Technical Details

Millennium Project Number: M-2002-016

Project Title: KeyHole Tech: Market Evaluation and Product Development

Project Start Date: 2002

Projected End Date: NA

Technical Details:

One objective of the natural gas industry is to complete street cuts and pavement restoration more quickly, with less cost, and reduce the public impact while maintaining not only the quality of workmanship on the pipeline, but also the roadway's infrastructure.
Much of the cost, impact, disruption and long-term effect on the life of the road is due to the excavation and backfilling aspects of the work, not to the actual operation undertaken on the pipe or cable once access has been achieved. Civil engineering has developed innovative methods for pipe maintenance from the road surface through much smaller ("keyhole") openings. This reduces the disruption to the road user and also to theroad structure itself. In addition, companies using these keyhole techniques can  experience a decrease in costs for specific tasks. A vacuum truck can eliminate the need for several other pieces of equipment such as a backhoe and a dump truck. A smaller excavation means reduced backfill and paving requirements that may result in reduced permit and other pavement cut fees.  Cost benefit analysis on the investment for vacuum equipment can show short payback periods (2 years or less). Keyhole technology has been used by some utilities and contractors with great success and can accomplish the above stated objectives.  However many possible keyhole applications are not yet possible because the specialized tools have not yet been developed, or are not standardized for multiple fittings. Therefore, this multi-year program will support the development of severaltypes of keyhole tools/equipment, along with various other toolenhancements, studies and processes.


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