Monday, July 18, 2016

Essential Info On Locating Underground Utilities Edmonton

By Amanda Powell


Ideally, utility location entails the identification and labeling of public utilities that are located underground. Different public utility lines are kept below ground level for convenience and nature of their functionality. Due to this reason, these kind of public utilities need to be identified and labeled prior to digging a given place. All together, locating underground utilities Edmonton guarantees that safety measures are taken into consideration even when undertaking simple acts like digging a hole.

There are possibilities of underground utilities being damaged in any mining area. The damage could be hazardous and of expensive depending on the utility type. Such damage would cause, project delay, casualties, possible fines from the authorities concerned, costs due to project repair and interruption of service offered by the utility. Such needless unexpected costs and disruptions could be avoided in Edmonton AB by ensuring that location of the utility is done before any excavation is done.

There are different systems that run below the ground. Some of these schemes include fiber optics, traffic lights, waste water pipes, telephone lines, natural gas, electric grids and much more. As a result, the numerous materials conveyed in these systems, diverse detection as well as location methods are applied. Underground utilities may be made using plastic pipes, metal pipes, concrete or cables. Different techniques are applied to do accurate location that can be based on the type of material used in constructing the utility.

There are two ways in which methods of utility location can be classified, the conventional and non-conventional methods. A good example of the conventional techniques is the radioactive technique. This technique puts into practice the use of radio waves in utility location, and is mainly done on cables and metal pipes.

If the material cannot be detected using the conventional method, nonconventional techniques are employed. The nonconventional techniques are used for plastic pipes and concrete materials. One such method is the acoustic locating. This technique uses sound to determine the location of the utility. The method is commonly used to trace nonmetal water lines. A sound wave is normally introduced through a transducer in the water main, and the acoustic receiver listens to the sound emitted.

Another non-conventional technique used is the ground-penetrating radar. Normally, this method is used together with other techniques. The method utilizes radar pulses in taking a subsurface image. The GPR has transmitters and receivers in addition to profiling recorders. The signals received are then processed and graphic displays of data collected are generated. This method gives three-dimensional image of the underground utility.

The other non-conventional technique used for buried metallic objects is a magnetic locator. This works by giving the absolute levels of ferrous metals buried in the ground. They are mostly used in locating buried manhole lids, storage tanks below the ground and additional heavy metal contents.

It is of great importance for the systems buried below the ground to be located. This enables the production of very important information which is essential for future plans which include the capacity improvement of both mechanically and electrically, relocation of roads and many others.




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