管道修复人的圈子

随着地下管道逐年损耗、老化，准确勘测地下管道状态及问题的重要性正在逐年增加。为了保障现场施工人员、城镇居民的安全，使用定位器及时发现并记录地下燃气管道、水管、电讯网管、下水道、电气等设施管道的状态是尤其重要的。目前用来探测埋地下管道设施的方法主要有：直接定位（正负电流检测法）、引导定位（通过将信号发射到地表下并接受反射信号）、被动定位（用于检测未知地下设备）。目前业界主要使用单频、多频定位工具。目前单频定位工具使用较广。虽然近5-7年来发展并不明显，但越来越多制造商正在引入蓝牙、GPS定位功能，以追求更清晰、高质量的定位信号。当前美国的地下设施损坏程度已到了亟需维修的地步。目前使用的书面、图纸记录等方法已经不能完全记下动态发展的、庞大复杂的地下设施情况。随着工程技术的发展，动态、准确地进行信息记录的新软件已得到开发并应用。ProStarGeoCorp开发了配合地下综合网管发展的软件，可面向所有行业提供地下网管的实时状态。通过一台专业的移动设备可以实现对道路、桥梁、火车轨道、各类地下管道、浅表地下设施等的维护和管理。可量化研究表明，使用这类移动云计算软件可以减少90%以上的突发管线问题，大大降低人工成本和对自然环境、公共环境的影响和风险，并能优化并提高工程的效率和准确性。

SUE – The Future of Locating Buried Utilities Is Now

Investigating the underground world and depicting the findings has become a significant challenge as an ever-increasing plethora of utility infrastructure continues to age. As more utilities are installed in the ground, it is integral to identify and record information as it relates to gas, fiber, water, telecommunications, sewer and electric utilities to protect them and ensure the safety of field crews and private citizens.

The Science Behind Locators

Some buried utilities emit a passive charge or transmit a signal, similar to radio stations. Locator tools have the ability to tune to these frequencies and pick up the signal that is produced. However, some lines do not give off a passive signal. In these cases, a transmitter can actively induce a signal onto a conductive line, allowing the locator tool to receive the signal.

Active locating is searching for a targeted utility by means of direct connection to the conductive utility or inducing a frequency onto it. The transmitting equipment is either attached directly to the line or, if you cannot make a direct connection to the line, a frequency is selected and induced into the ground and reradiated by the targeted utility.

If a designating technician is actively locating utilities, there are multiple methods in which to introduce signal to the targeted utility:

Direct connection: The most common connection method in the industry. This method uses direct connection leads, much like jumper cables, with positive and negative polarity to introduce alternating current along the utility.

Induction: There may not always be direct access or safe methods to creating a direct connection. Contractors may also utilize an inductive ring clamp that allows them the ability to focus the induction of the signal more directly onto the targeted utility. Alternatively, a contractor can induce a single high frequency by pushing a signal from a transmitter through the earth’s surface to a conductor buried below that then radiates the signal back to a receiver. This method tends to work well on lines and pipes in non-congested areas, but introducing a high frequency into the ground can often produce a distorted signal in areas where multiple utilities are housed.

Passive locating is commonly used to check project areas for unknown buried utilities. A contractor can simply use a receiver to sweep the area, looking for frequencies that are radiated and re-radiated naturally. This method does not allow the operator of the locating equipment to distinguish between the types of buried utilities; it only provides an indication of the possible presence of a utility.

Locating Tools

The industry utilizes two types of locating tools: single- and multiple-frequency to accomplish active and passive locating. There are strengths and limitations to each.

The single-frequency tools have been used for decades. These systems consist of a transmitter and a receiver that are tuned to a specific frequency. Although these units have the ability to directly connect and induce a signal via ring clamp coupling, they are widely used to induce through the ground.

Multiple-frequency tools allow you to tune the frequency higher or lower to better locate the different materials involved in constructing the utilities. The lower frequencies tend to travel effectively along the targeted utility, while higher frequencies may become distorted and bleed off to non-targeted utilities.

Technology Enhancements

While the technology of locating equipment has not drastically changed in the past five to seven years, many manufacturers are adding enhancements such as Bluetooth communication and GPS integration to provide better signals and to attach the locations to GPS coordinates.

Nearly all manufacturers are increasing the power of their locating transmitters to achieve clearer and more quality signals. There have been advancements to the receivers to help filter out the unwanted noise and bleed-off that assist in gathering a more accurate signal and reading. The industry is also coupling the locator receiver with GPS devices, external or internal, that allow mapping of the utility line with increasingly more accurate latitude and longitude coordinates.

Damages to underground infrastructure have reached unacceptable levels. Current industry practices to determine the location of buried infrastructure utilize antiquated business methodology, including paper documentation, paint, or flag markings, some of which have proven ineffective in creating a dynamic database of this critical information. In the U.S. alone, we spend approximately 10 billion dollars a year locating underground utilities, and yet we still have an annual impact of 30 billion on the economy and, ultimately, the customer’s utility fees.

To combat this issue, software has been created to leverage new technological enhancements. According to Matthew Breman, vice president of marketing at ProStar GeoCorp, this software is “designed to improve any industry’s business operations that require knowledge of the precise location of sub-surface infrastructure. By providing real-time access to precise location information, [the software] eliminates and streamlines outdated workflow processes and legacy equipment to deliver mission critical data in real-time to all field and office personnel.”

The software “is a patented mobile and cloud application that seamlessly connects the field with the office and provides the ability to precisely capture, record, and display, critical infrastructure data necessary for the efficient and timely maintenance and management of surface infrastructure including roads, bridges, railways, pipelines, and subsurface infrastructure including utilities and pipelines from a standard mobile device,” shares Breman.

Leveraging Technology

Breman also states that “quantifiable research on completed large infrastructure projects shows that using cloud and mobile capabilities have reduced utility line strikes by over 90 percent, reducing risk to workers, the environment, and the public while creating considerable cost savings.”

Integrating a software such as this allows for more efficient workflows and more accurate systems of record for the vast array of buried utilities. Locating companies are able to more effectively and efficiently implement a more direct and stringent quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) program that is advanced and cutting-edge. These efficiencies can equate to increased savings and profit while minimizing construction delays and change orders.