What Is Pipe Jacking?

Pipe jacking (or micro-tunneling) is an underground technique using powerful hydraulic jacks to push well-designed pipes while controlled excavation takes place at the tunnel face. This method offers both environmental and economic advantages.

To ensure jacked pipes can withstand expected jacking forces, they should be designed according to an engineer-determined class strength. This involves including lubrication ports and intermediate jacking stations as well as performing manual survey checks.

Early Life and Education

Pipe jacking involves successively pushing pipe segments underground in order to form a “pipe chain,” gradually adding stress and strain on the system. Poor-quality jacking pipe may increase this strain further and cause failure at its joints and segments.

Research has explored ways of mitigating risk by employing reinforced concrete jacking pipe. This has proved both possible and successful due to high-quality molds being available for the pipe.

This study explored how the size and placement of jacking pipes affect ground behavior, using model experiments. Results have demonstrated that different load positions result in different deformation trough distribution patterns with differing influence laws; IPSO-BP hybrid prediction model was then able to accurately predict settlement for this case study.

Professional Career

Pipe jacking is a trenchless installation method using hydraulic jacks to push precast concrete pipes through the soil using hydraulic pressure, making it an attractive solution for sewer and water line projects but can pose certain risks depending on soil conditions. In order to minimize those risks, it’s crucial that an extensive site investigation be completed prior to beginning work.

One of the primary concerns of any pipe jacking program is potential tunnel front face failure, an extremely dangerous prospect that must be prevented at all costs. To counteract this threat, BLOC employed lowvibration blasting techniques tailored for use in confined space environments as well as hydraulic rock splitters to keep their tunnel front faces intact and intact for as long as possible.

In addition to these activities, BLOC installed large diameter reinforced concrete pipe sleeves for Rand Water in a complex project that involved crossings under critical infrastructure such as roads, railway lines and existing pipelines.

Achievement and Honors

Pipe jacking is a cost-effective and quicker alternative to trenching that employs hydraulic jacks to push prefabricated pipes into the earth during tunnel excavation. This process enables larger diameter pipes to be installed more quickly and cost-efficiently than trenching ever could.

However, maximum drive distance can be restricted by safe personnel entry into a pipeline string to connect and disconnect lubrication ports and intermediate jacking stations. Furthermore, it’s critical that any pipe being jacked have good compressive strength so as to resist cracking; density and exterior surface roughness also play a factor.

Shear forces are determined by the angle between particles at an interface between curved pipe-soil surfaces, until an outer roughness limit is met at which shear force reduces to zero. Therefore, these factors must be taken into consideration when designing long drive pipes.

Personal Life

Pipe jacking is an underground tunnelling technique used to install pipes without entering into an actual tunnel. This technique promises more accurate support to excavation faces while decreasing potential ground movements, as well as being suitable for use in tight spaces and in confined environments. Pipe jacking has found use in various construction projects including railway and highway worksites.

Microtunnelling (also referred to as tunnelling) is a process that reduces costs, traffic disruption and environmental impact by forgoing open cut roads and tunneling pipe instead. Pipe manufactured this way withstands robust jacking forces while being manufactured as straight as possible with exact exterior dimensions; quality control at manufacturing plants ensures this. Any spikes in jacking force during stoppages appear as curves on plots of increasing force against distance (see figure 1) as do any localized peaks due to daily line checks or pipe changes (see figure 1).

Net Worth

Pipe jacking involves inserting pipe segments into the ground and stacking them up gradually underground, increasing stress on individual pipes or an entire tunnel chain and potentially leading to costly and dangerous disruptions to public life.

Jacked pipes may serve both as temporary construction lining and as the final permanent product, transporting water, sewage or other utilities. Therefore, selecting an appropriate pipe in terms of durability and sustainability becomes paramount in this form of tunneling. Besides these factors, there can also be significant variations in jacking force that could cause significant damage to both itself or nearby soil conditions (Barla et al. 2006; Ong and Choo 2016).