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.