Auger Boring Trenchless Technology and Equipment
I witnessed something on the golf course that created so much interest that many golfers took a break from their game to watch the proceedings. In order to provide floodlighting at a certain Tee Electric cables had to be installed across a fairway. Of course this presented what appeared to be an insurmountable problem for the golf club as they could not close off the fairway to install the required cables. It was a very busy club and members would not tolerate having to bypass a hole on the course. Someone muted the idea of erecting an electric pole both at the supply source and next to the T in question but this was a non-starter for safety and aesthetic reasons. After some careful consideration and consultation with a tunnelling firm it was decided to opt for underground installation of the electric cables using an augur boring process.
Most members had never heard of this before and were concerned by the prospect of under cutting the fairway. The contractor in question guaranteed the process to be seamless and non intrusive. I’d never heard of Auger boring and was keen to see the operation. On arriving at the scene I discovered that a small hole had been dug unobtrusively on waste ground just off the fairway. A strange looking machine which I discovered to be an augur boring machine had commenced the process of drilling a narrow tunnel to house the ducting for the electric cable. It was apparently boring a trench underneath the fairway and on further inspection I discovered what they call a receiving hole next to the Tee where the flood lighting was required. It was market clearly with with chalk dust and that was the expected exit point of the electric cable ducting.
Could augur boring really be such a precise science? The answer was given within a few hours when the piping appeared through the exact marked spot on the reception chamber. All the onlookers were aghast with astonishment as the final stage of the project was begun. Small man holes were quickly built with blocks, at both the launch and reception ends of the augur boring pathway. The ducting pathway was about 40 m long but there was certainly no sign of it on the fairway.
The spoil from the augur boring process appeared from the tunnel as compacted cylindrical units and was loaded onto a lorry for removal and disposal to a landfill site. The automation, speed and completely unobtrusive nature of the project filled us with sheer appreciation and pride and apparently the golf club were very happy to pay the reasonable price for a job done so professionally and cleanly. The whole topic of conversation of late in the golf club bar among members is augur boring. Listening to the conversations you would think that they were all experts in the field. Nevertheless they are all delighted with the new floodlights at the eighth tee and reckon that augur boring is one of the greatest developments in recent times.
Terra Solutions is a leading trenchless civil engineering contractor specilaising in Auger Boring
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