Winter 2013

As part of Southern Water’s £10.5 million investment to replace 30km of sewers across the south east of the UK, AMS No-Dig were contracted by the main contractors, Clancy Docwra, to install the new 500mm sewer pipe from Medina Road in Cowes to The Esplanade in East Cowes, Isle of Wight. The entire 560m length of the drill was beneath the bed of the River Medina at depths of up to 25m.

AMS opted to use the Power bore 70t Drilling Rig, which is very compact at 10m x 2.2m, and, with 70 tonnes of thrust and pullback, it proved to be the ideal choice.

Under normal conditions solids removal would also be carried out at rig side, but due to the large footprint of the recycling centre this had to be positioned at the exit side of the drill over in East Cowes. The logistical problem of transferring the processed drilling mud from the exit side back to the rig was overcome by running a series of tankers.

Peter Guilliatt AMS Operations Manager said

“Construction was not without its problems, largely due to the location and the logistics of physically carrying out the works, but with the commitment of all concerned and the understanding of the local community, the work was completed just two weeks behind an already tight schedule.”

Sewer replacement on the Isle of Wight

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Medina Roaddrilling

compound

Drilling route

Esplanade exit compound

Due to the nature of the drill, traditional ‘walk over’ tracking methods could not be used to track the drill head’s progress so AMS used a hi-tech Gyro steering tool. The DrillGuide GST system is an optical gyro tool that does not require any surface wire grids to guide the drill bit.

One of the biggest challenges facing the engineers was planning around the limited space available at the drill entry point on Medina Road, which consisted of a single carriageway and a slipway down to the water’s edge.

AMS No-Dig were asked to install 14 180mm cable ducts across the River Tyne in Newcastle, from Wallsend to Hebburn, on behalf of Balfour Beatty – contractor to Northern Power Grid. The purpose was to replace existing oil filled cables positioned 30m below the river bed, within an existing cable tunnel, which was hand dug by Italian contractors over 100 years ago. The scheme had been on the radar since 2005, with a number of crossing locations considered by Balfour Beatty. The problem was securing a route that did not sterilise the land each side of the river to future development. After exhausting all avenues and being unable to gain the necessary agreements from landowners, Balfour Beatty approached AMS in early 2012.

The initial enquiry raised a few eyebrows in the AMS office. The question was “could the new ducts be installed in close proximity to the existing tunnel and remain within the existing easement corridor”. Tricky was the initial thought when considering the risk of drilling slurry finding its way into the tunnel or the possibility of the tunnel records being inaccurate which could be catastrophic if the drill came into contact with it.

AMS and Balfour Beatty engineers set about undertaking site investigations in the form of geotechnical surveys, site mapping and the review of historical records of the tunnel, before finally deciding the risks were manageable and the scheme was indeed feasible.

Construction on site commenced in December 2012. However, just 30m into the first pilot drill, an underground obstruction was encountered which resulted in the drill being aborted. Over the following four week period, further investigation was carried out to determine the extent of the obstruction, which was found to be the foundations of a large building and four 60" cast iron pipelines – all associated with an old power station which previously occupied the site.

In addition to Balfour Beatty removing the 60" pipes, part of the investigation involved drilling a number of test pilot drills around the extremities of the foundation to the edge of the river using a small 17 tonne rig. The test drills proved successful and were completed to an acceptable horizontal radius. The rig anchorage system was then reset to the new route and the rig repositioned for the main drilling works.

Carville Cable Tunnel Replacement

Plan view of the drill route, showing the position of the tunnel and buried structure

Top of the buried structure

Drilling recommenced at the end of January 2013 and was successfully completed over an eight week period using AMS No-Dig’s largest drilling rig – the Prime Drilling PD250 – which offers 90,000nm of rotary torque and 250 tons of pull back force.

Drill site set up at the north bank

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REGISTERED TO ISO 9001:2000 REGISTERED TO ISO 14001:2004 REGISTERED TO ISO OHSAS 18001

AMS No-Dig have completed a scheme on behalf of Global Rail Construction to design and build a HDD crossing under a Grade 2 listed building, the Ouse Road, the Great River Ouse, and the main railway line in the town centre of Selby, North Yorkshire. The installation was to replace existing electricity cables as part of the Selby Rail Swing Bridge Interlocking Renewal scheme commissioned by Network Rail.

The project faced some difficult challenges from the start. Due to land access and easement issues, a complicated three radius horizontal plan was required. This involved a 32° left turn followed by a 12° turn to the right with a combination radius (the combination of the drill string changing direction vertically and horizontally at the same time) of 225m. This project had a 475m vertical radius and 250m horizontal radius to ensure that once installed, the cables would be located within agreed land boundaries.

In addition to the drill passing under a listed building, a road, river and parallel to a metallic railway swing bridge, it also passed beneath a sheet piled flood defence and railway lines – all areas of very high magnetic interference. AMS No-Dig Ltd worked closely with Global Rail to provide the most cost-effective and technically sound engineering solution.

The DrillGuide GST system was deemed the best tool for the job. This is an optical gyro tool that does not require any surface wire grids and is not affected by any external magnetic interference. It does not need to be housed inside a non-magnetic

drill collar and therefore can be positioned nearer to the drill bit, giving accurate hole data as soon as possible. The accuracy of the GST tool is 0.04° on azimuth and 0.02° on inclination.

A 6 ¾" 7-8 Lobe 3 stage mud motor fitted with a 9.7/8" sealed bearing milled tooth bit was selected to cut through the sandstone formation. As there was very little tolerance for the steering engineer to work to, careful project planning was required to hit the many critical tangent points along the route. The pilot drill was completed in a five day period to within 4% tolerance in both position and depth, which was more than acceptable to Network Rail.

Reaming and pipe installation were carried out over a further five day period using a combination of hole openers and hole stabilisers.

Plan showing the horizontal curvature of the drill

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Bridging the gap

Swing Bridge

Drill Head

Drill head punching out. The swing bridge is visible in the background.

Looking out for Barton upon Humber

Competitors and spectators were able to check scores instantly, from anywhere at

the venue

AMS IT Systems is currently working with Barton upon Humber Town Council to upgrade and improve the town’s CCTV system. AMS IT Systems has been maintaining the old system for some time, but the image quality was proving to be not good enough for use as evidence. It was decided that a progressive system overhaul and upgrade should be carried out, and AMS IT Systems were selected to advise on, supply, install and commission suitable equipment as well as train the Police and Community Support Officers in the use of the system.

So far six of the existing cameras and recorders have been upgraded, as well as a brand new site located in a ‘vandalism hot spot’. This has been very well received by the Police, and has already been used to record evidence of vandalism.

The cameras record 24 hours a day, onto new, higher resolution digital recording equipment linked to the internet, meaning images can now be downloaded quickly and easily by Police investigating incidents.

The new cameras are high resolution analogue Pan, Tilt, Zoom (PTZ) units which perform a pre-set movement, scanning the area around them. Manual control of the cameras can also be taken over via the internet and mobile devices if required. The PTZ cameras also have movement detectors which allow them to instantly spin and zoom to look at a specified location if a sensor is triggered.

The new cameras, which provide much clearer images and higher reliability than the ones previously in place, have been welcomed by business owners in George Street.

Shop owner, Mike Matthews, said:

“It is a big deterrent, any form of security is a positive and I think there is nothing worse than getting up in the morning, coming around the corner and being worried about your premises. Hopefully for anybody seeking to cause a little bit of bother, they might think twice now.”

The network, which now has twelve cameras in total, has been funded and developed by a partnership of the Town Council, Safer Neighbourhoods, Northern Rail and the Barton Chamber of Trade. AMS IT Systems have been responsible for the support and maintenance of the system since it was first installed in 2009. Since then, it has helped police with investigations into several major incidents, including an arson attack which damaged the Rafters restaurant in High Street in November 2009.

AMS IT Systems News

AMS IT Systems recently provided a full site wireless network and live scoring and results system to Sheepgate Equestrian, hosts of the annual British Dressage National Under 25s Championships.

The Deliberant range of high power outdoor wireless equipment was used as it could be connected to the main Sheepgate network, but use a routed network with different subnets to keep the ‘show’ traffic separate to the rest of the network.

The second part of the project was to provide a database of entries and start times prior to the show, as well as provide live scoring and results on Sheepgate's website. This system was developed using PHP and a MySQL database.

One competitor was heard to say “It is great to be able to look on our phone to find our score while we are untacking the horse in the stables,

without having to walk over to the score boards”.

Over the course of the six day show, the results page alone

received over 35,000 hits!

Along for the ride

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