Evaluating Benefits of Horizontal Directional Drilling Compared to Open-Cut: Case Study in the City of Enid, OK
Publication: Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice
Volume 11, Issue 3
Abstract
The process of installing and maintaining buried pipelines can be disruptive to the local traffic along with other undesirable impacts such as airborne emissions from the construction equipment used and workers’ safety concerns. City engineers have the option of using traditional open-cut installation or trenchless technology methods known as horizontal directional drilling (HDD) at their disposal. A waterline relocation project by the City of Enid in Oklahoma to relocate and replace more than 1,100 ft of an existing waterline is used in this study to build empirical evidence of the benefits of HDD over open-cut method based on production rate, airborne equipment emissions, traffic disruption, and workers’ safety features. Field data using human observers and wireless sensors on production, airborne emissions of equipment used, traffic disruption, and workers’ safety from the two separate installations were collected and analyzed. The airborne emissions of the equipment used in the HDD and open-cut installations were comparable, with a lower carbon-monoxide level in the HDD installation accompanied by a sudden spike during the last hour of work. There was no evidence in favor of HDD having less traffic disruption with comparable traffic flow rates and average vehicle speeds at the intersections of the neighboring streets. There were no accidents or incidents recorded during the period of observation.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request: Productivity, Airborne Emission, and Daily Traffic Flow.
Acknowledgments
This research study was supported by a grant (SPTC-ECDP) from the Southern Plains Transportation Center (STPC) funded by the Department of Transportation (ODOT). We would like to thank SPTC for supporting this study.
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©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: May 19, 2019
Accepted: Jan 31, 2020
Published online: Apr 28, 2020
Published in print: Aug 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Sep 28, 2020
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