London Concrete removal from antique brick pipeline

December 20 2018

Over 5 meters of concrete were successfully removed from an antique 500mm brick storm water pipeline inside one of London’s oldest subway station. The building grade concrete was meant to fill blind laterals, but had instead found its way into the mainline and restricted the flow of the 500mm brick dewatering pipeline that was situated underneath the tracks just inside the tube.

The truck with installed water supply and remotely controlled, diesel engine driven, 2500bar high pressure pump was parked outside the entrance of the subway station. After the last metro passed the station, the MH60 mobile cable reel, control unit, R160 crawler and WJ180 water jet cutting module were hand-carried to the platform and the high pressure hoses were laid out over a total length of 250 meters from pump to robot.

The water jet cutting robot was operated from the platform via the CP3D mobile control unit and mobile cable reel. With eyes on the operation, as well as control over the robot’s movements and the pressure supplied by the high pressure unit, the operator achieved to break the concrete deposits loose from the host pipe. The loosened deposits were then flushed to the manhole and removed.