If you’ve encountered prolonged construction on your morning commute, you may find yourself wondering: Why are they tearing up the road? Why is it taking so long? How have they not found a better way to do this?
Aging pipes were likely the source of your frustrations. Right now, when a pipe deteriorates, the most common solution is to dig it out and replace it in a costly – and traffic-inducing – process. But, Shad Sargand, head of the Ohio Research Institute for Transportation and the Environment (ORITE), said it’s a flawed system.
“When you do construction and you dig the road and you're putting in a new pipe, it takes time. That means you take the traffic detour to go to another route. Generally that's not a very good situation because the chance that you get in an accident or something goes wrong [increases],” Sargand said.
That’s led Ohio University researchers to conduct a national study. They want to keep those pipes in better shape and lessen the risk for the public in the process.
Why do they need replacing?
Pipes help prevent erosion and flooding on our roads. Over time, extreme temperatures and structural stress take their toll on the condition of the infrastructure.
Plus, it’s not just water running through the pipes: fertilizer, acid mine drainage or other chemicals course through the pipes and cause them to deteriorate over time, Sargand said.
“Even though we put up protection on the pipes, they’re aluminized or galvanized, but still when you expose [the pipes] to this chemical, they have a limited life, so they get corroded.”
They typically corrode after around 40 to 50 years, Sargand said. More than 90,000 pipes that crisscross Ohio are corroding at a faster rate than they can be replaced.
What’s the alternative?
Instead of digging up the ground, Sargand and other Ohio university researchers are using a federal grant to explore a less costly alternative.
“One of the techniques that we are working on now is we put a liner inside of the pipe,” Sargand said. “So almost a pipe inside of the pipe.”
Felt or fiberglass tubes rehabilitate the corroded pipes and prevent further deterioration. They’re called cured-in-place pipe liners (CIPPs) and Sargand believes they could be the new national standard.
It doesn’t require lengthy road closures and it costs a lot less than excavation. Sargand says, it’s a safer and less stressful method for all involved.
“I also work in the area of the pavement. I don't like that we will go there and start digging the pavement because that will give us another headache because then we have to put in a new pavement and [worry about whether] we have good compatibility with the old one and new one,” he said.
Why is Ohio leading the charge?
Sargand's research won’t just benefit Ohio drivers. The research will be used across the country to lessen reliance on excavation.
Sargand says it carries on a long tradition of Ohio being a pioneer for pipes. One of the leading pipe manufacturers is based in Ohio and much of the industry’s innovation is driven from the state.
He said Ohioans should be proud of their state’s work in paving the way for infrastructure needs. He says the pipes running underneath our roads deserve more recognition for their role in protecting our pavement.
“We take everything for granted. We drive over a road and we say, ‘Okay, it's good.’ But there's some people that built it and worked on it. And that is the missing part.”
