Underground Construction - July 2019 - 30

Normally, this would not be a problem
for any experienced underground utility
contractor. However, there are many
pipes and utilities already in the ground
at the nuclear plant, crisscrossing the
path of the new fire-safety system.

Non-traditional pipeline
installation

The Build-A-Box Sheeting Guide Frame utilizes lightweight corrugated sheets of aluminum
to shore closely around existing cross-trench utilities.
James McRay

Unique Shoring Solution
for Fire-Safety Installation
at Nuclear Plant
Sometimes redundancy is a good thing,
especially when considering safety at one
of the country's nuclear generation plants.
All systems must be working efficiently
with back-ups to the back-ups. That is why
one such nuclear power plant contracted
the installation of a new generatorpowered, fire-suppression system to back
30

JULY 2019 | UConOnline.com

up the existing power-dependent, firesuppression system.
This particular "excavation" project
presented a unique challenge for the
contractor charged with installing more
than 1,000 linear feet of pipe and conduit.
Most of the high-pressure water pipeline
was installed underground at the facility.

Knowing it needed a little help with the
trench shoring aspects of the project,
the contractor called in the trench safety
specialists at Efficiency Production, a
leading manufacturer of trench shielding
and shoring equipment.
"The contractor's project manager came
in to look at some shoring equipment
and talk about potential solutions for the
underground project at the power plant,"
said Allan Baron, Efficiency's national
sales manager. "We've worked with the
contractor before, so we understood the
challenges they were facing."
The original idea Baron pitched was
to use a Shore-Trak Sheeting Guide
Frame, a system for navigating crosstrench utilities. "However, after taking
into consideration the excavation safety
requirements at the plant, it became
evident that Shore-Trak wasn't going to
work," admitted Baron.
"The biggest prohibiting factor was
that almost all excavation at the nuclear
facility is done exclusively by hydroexcavation," explained Jim Hamilton,
Efficiency's sales and rental manager who
conducted the initial site assessment and
provided on-site support. "There is no
'mechanized digging' allowed at all;
no excavators, only vac-trucks."
"With our initial shoring plan ruled
out, we needed to put our heads together
and come up with a better trench safety
mousetrap," Baron asserted.

Solution found
The better mousetrap turned out to be
Efficiency Production's Build-A-Box
modular aluminum shoring system
with new, integrated Sheeting Guide
Frames. This utilizes lightweight
corrugated aluminum sheets to shore
closely around existing cross-trench
utilities. The guide frame panel
integrates seamlessly into any Build-ABox configuration, and the aluminum
sheets can be installed by hand.
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Underground Construction - July 2019

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