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Introduction
The materials used for constructing for the transportation of water have evolved over a very long period of time from the most basic ditches and stone channels in the years BC through hollowed out wooden logs to labour intensively constructed large scale brick sewers in Victorian times to the most modern of composite and manmade materials we see today.
The stresses placed on these conduits have increased as time has marched on as we as a human race have also evolved, and engineering solutions and developments have given us more and more abrasive and generally offensive things in our lives that we all simply tip down the drain during modern life without giving it a 2nd thought.
This page shows some of the more common materials seen today by CCTV surveyors during pipe inspections.
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Material Classes
Drainage materials are generally classed into two types, with two additional sub types:
Modular - sewer conduits that are constructed from small building blocks without any discrete joints, like brick sewers.
Piped - sewers and drains that are constructed from discrete jointed manufactured pipes:
Rigid pipes - pipes that have no capacity to bend when stressed under load, they just break.
Flexible Pipes - pipes that can absorb a degree of deformation without any loss of structural integrity as a result because of their design and manufacturing process.
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Modular Sewer Construction
Modular sewers, usually referred to as ‘Brick’ or ‘Masonry’ are constructed using building blocks and mortar and are always rigid, but there is a distinct difference between the materials ‘Brick’ and ‘Masonry’ although the construction methods are basically the same:
Bricks are man made manmade and usually have clean edges from the manufacturing process. Brown bricks are fired from clay, but there also blue bricks, sometimes known as ‘Engineering Bricks’. Brick sewers are still used these days in some areas of the world, particularly where there are very fast flowing sewers due to their wear resistance, and it is common to see bricks not fired from clay, but cut from Basalt rock, also with hard clean edges.
Masonry is used to define modular construction where the unit objects are either irregular sizes, have rounded edges, or are simply modular and not bricks. Masonry is more of a 'catch-all generic term for non-piped, non-brick sewers. Masonry can be regularly coursed (in neat rows of similar sized elements) or irregularly coursed.
Brick sewers usually have two skins of bricks, sometimes three, so it is not uncommon to see the inner skin of bricks has fallen away in the structure of the sewer, but the basic construction of the conduit is still in tactintact, albeit damaged.
Brick sewers can be almost any shape due to the way that they are constructed, the most common shapes being egg shape and circular.
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Notice the clay channel at the bottom (know known as the invert) which is hollow. This is because most sewers were originally constructed along the lines of streams, rivers and ditches, so the hollow channel was used to carry the water of the original stream and keep it away from the waste water wastewater inside the sewer.
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Circular Brick Culvert
A culvert is a ‘Covered Watercourse’, so is seen on rain water rainwater systems, often going under roads and railway lines, or carrying a river underneath the streets of a city.
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See that the blocks are more rounded than bricks with much less well-defined edges, and the sizes of the blocks is not consistent. This would be ‘Regularly Coursed Masonry’.
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Where there is no option in a material list for tiled constructions, we would use ‘Other’ with a comment. Here, the sewer is constructed from manufactured interlocking clay tile segments creating a smooth internal surface that is hard wearing. If you look in the distance, you can see the design of the tiles where the sewer has failed and there were often two layers of interlocking tile skins in the construction.
Piped Sewer Construction
As written previously, piped sewers are usually sub divided into rigid and flexible groups where there are advantages and disadvantages of both:
Rigid - can take a significant loading in all directions (static loads on sewers are not always from above) and often don’t need any additional ground support when being constructed, but offer no flexibility, so failure can be catastrophic.
Flexible - usually cheaper to manufacture and install , but comes with an added expense of requiring additional backfill material around the pipe in the trench which acts as a slip barrier between the pipe and the surrounding ground so that movement does not damage the pipe. Can take a limited amount of deformation without any loss of structural strength.
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Socket & Spigot - this is where the pipes are manufactured in such a way that one end of the pipe has a ‘Socket’ and the other end has a ‘Spiggot’. The Socket is the large bell-shaped end of the pipe and the plain Spigot end sits inside it with any number of different sealing systems based on the pipe material. Is common with clay pipes and also cast iron and plastic materials.
External Plain Ended Joints - where the joint is not a preformed part of the pipe, so the pipes are simply have plain ends ended at both ends, and then some kind of external joint is used to connect them together. This type of jointing is easier to work with during construction because pipes can be cut to any length when needed and be easily jointed on site.
All modern joints are designed to include a designed level of flexibility, so that where there is any kind of ground movement (occurs a lot when the ground becomes wet and then dries out, or where a nearby tree sucks the water out of the ground), the joints can absorbed absorb the surrounding movement without any damage.
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Lack of flexibility, so any local ground movement cannot be absorbed by the pipe joint, and the pipe simply breaks and cracks either side of the joint which in itself is a large immovable object under the ground.
Disintegration and loss of seal - when these pipes were laid maybe 100 years ago, society did not have the cleaning products that we have nowadays, most of which are advertised on our TVs as being able to effortlessly remove limescale from our kitchen worktops and bathroom basins. This feature of these products, which we just tip away down the plughole also dissolve away the lime in the mortar joints in the sewers, leading to joint failures and leakage both in and out of the sewer.
Flexible and Rigid Pipes
As mentioned, pipes can be sub divided into flexible and rigid materials. Generally speaking, it is easier to define which pipes are flexible materials, and therefor by deduction, if it is not flexible, it must be rigid.
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As far as the metals are concerned, there are two distinct properties of metals that come into play here - is the material malleable or brittle? These are terms used to describe the properties of the material, and materials like steel are malleable, which means that they will bend under load, even if it is very hard to actually do it, so it is a flexible material. On the other hand, cast iron is rigid. It does not bend, it just breaks, in the same way that concrete and clay do, but again, it is extremely difficult to actually do this in real life.
Clay Pipes (Rigid)
Clay pipes are always rigid have been around for a very long time in sewer construction due to their hard wearing and smooth surface properties. Most clay pipes nowadays are plain ended with plastic jointing collars and neoprene seals where as whereas older clay pipes were usually socket and spigot pipes with tarred yarn and lime mortar joints.
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The word ‘Vitrified’ means glasslike, so by definition, ‘Vitrified Clay’ has been glazed and has a shiny surface. Not all clay pipes are glazed, in fact most modern clay pipes are not glazed, so the word ‘Vitrified’ should be used carefully. Additionally, ‘Salt Glazed’ clay pipes and Sometimes vitrified clay pipes are not the same thing. 'Salt Glazed pipes are extremely rare but very attractive to look at. These are very old pipes where salt was used in the glazing process to give a white surface to the pipealso referred to as ‘Salt Glazed’ pipes due to the Sodium that is used in the glaze to create the clear glasslike finish.
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Vitrified Clay Products
Notice in all of the three pictures above that the clay has a shiny surface - this is vitrified clay. The last image is not even a sewer pipe at all, it is actually a roof tile, but the material is the same as is used in drains, and the photo nicely shows the glazed finish.
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Non Vitrified -vitrified Clay Pipes
These are the modern version of clay pipes that have plain ends, plastic collars and are not vitrified. The pipe material has no glazing at all and is just bare clay. Still very hard wearing and great for sewers. Notice the pipes in the 2nd picture that have perforations (or holes) in the sides. These are often seen in surface water drainage systems where the holes are either used to allow water to enter the pipe from the surrounding ground , or are used to allow flooded water from the pipe to soak away into the surrounding ground.
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Salt White Glazed Clay
Often Sometimes seen in drains around luxury town houses in the old parts of cities, where the drainage system is extremely old, and and are often still working just great. See the white clay work of the drainage channels in this chamber, and even the tiles making up the benching (thanks to Sam Bean for this photo).
Common structural problems with clay pipes usually revolve around cracks, fractures, joints and breaks due to the very nature of the joints and the material itself. If you try to deform a clay pipe by even 5%, then it will not bend, it will fracture and break.
Concrete Pipes (Rigid)
Concrete is usually used for larger diameter sewers from 300mm dia upwards to almost any conceivable size. Concrete pipes can be:
Almost any shape.
Segmental (most common), so they are discrete jointed pipes, usually socket & spigot joints with neoprene seals.
Reinforced - except where there is evidence of failure inside a concrete pipe, there is usually no way of knowing if the pipe is reinforced or not. Where the concrete material has steel reinforcement bars set into its wall, water can get through the fabric of the concrete, attack the steel reinforcement, and cause it to rust, which then in turn makes it expand and break away the internal surface of the pipe revealing damage and a loss of structural integrity.
Cast in Place (or in situ) - quite rare, but this is where the sewer has not been constructed from pre-fabricated prefabricated pipe sections but has been poured in place by the construction team.
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Spun Cast Iron pipe is cast iron pipe that has a cement lining attached to the inside at the point of manufacture. These types of pipe pipes are often used under buildings because the offer the superb load bearing properties of cast iron, while removing the common problem with cast iron pipes where the metal rusts and decays and becomes rough over time. Being able to spot this on a CCTV truck is often almost impossible from inside the pipe, unless you can see the end of the pipe in the manhole, where the structure is clear.
In a CCTV inspection report, this pipe should be labelled as cast iron with a spray coated lining inserted during manufacture.
Cast Iron Pipes (Rigid)
Cast Iron has been around in drainage pipes as a material for a very long time, and is used both above and below ground.
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In the last photo here, we see a cast iron and a steel pipe side-by-side. We know this because the appearance of the surface of the left pipe.
Mixed Materials
Most global drainage inspection standards offer the CCTV inspector to select the option ‘Mixed’ material from a list. This is where the sewer is made from more than one material and descriptions of the materials should be entered into the inspection remarks field.
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Here, the sides of the culvert are constructed from unit blocks (Regular Course Masonry) and the Crown of the pipe (the top) is built from bricks.
Polyvinyl Chloride PVC (Flexible)
Plastic pipes by their very nature can accept an element of deformation and bending without any loss of their structure, provided that they are well laid in good bedding as defined by the pipe manufacturers. The general rule of thumb with plastic pipes is that they can accept 6% of deformation without any loss of strength. One thing for sure with plastic deformation is that when it is deformed significantly, it looses loses its colour and turns white - try taking a piece of PVC from any product at home and bending it in half if you can - see the colour disappear from the product along its bend crease.
Also, by their nature, plastic pipes can come in almost any colour, and even be rainbow coloured where they are manufactured from recycled materials. It is common to see particular colours in different countries. In most of Europe, below ground PVC pipes are usually brown (above ground are grey or black), where as whereas in USA they are often green or white.
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Purple PVC Pipe with Socket & Spigot Joints
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Multi-coloured PVC Pipe
Polyethylene Pipe (Flexible)
Polyethylene (or PE) pipes are most commonly seen in highways drainage. They offer greater safe deformation extents than PVC, but there is a still a designed limit to how much they can deform with any loss of structure.
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Polyethylene is often referred to as low, medium and high density (LDPE, MDPE and HDPE). The twin wall pipe you see here are low density polyethylene. High density PE is impossible to tell apart from Polypropylene (below) and looks and feels the same. Only advice from the installer or the designer can help with telling these apart.
Polypropylene Pipes (Flexible)
Polypropylene is a thick-walled plastic that is very smooth and is almost waxy to the touch. It most often comes as plain ended pipes which can be butt-fusion welded together onsite making a water tight watertight and almost seamless joint, notwithstanding welding defects.
The pipes can come in fixed lengths of around 6m each pipe , but can also come in very long lengths of 50m or more with no joints, where they are dragged into place below the ground to replace a failed sewer using pipe bursting techniques.
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In the last image, we see a very long single length of either Polypropylene or High Density Polyethylene pipe on a pipe coil trailer as would be delivered to site, where the pipe can be dragged straight off the trailer and into the ground by a pipe bursting machine. A great pipe rehabilitation technique where there are no connections in the original sewer.
Pitch Fibre (Flexible)
Pitch Fibre pipe, also know known as Orangeburg in the USA after one of the major manufacturers was a man made manmade pipe popular from the 1950s to the 1970s. It is a processed product containing a mix of fibres (often asbestos) and a pitch tar. The result was a pipe that was cheap to manufacture, easy to handle and install because it was lightweight and was supplied in long lengths (usually 5m) so could be installed quickly.
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Pitch Fibre pipe is not normally seen in pipe over 15omm (6”) diameter in the UK.
Glass Reinforced Plastic (Flexible)
Glass Reinforced Plastic, also commonly known as GRP, FRP (Fibre Reinforced Plastic) or just Fibre Glass is a chemically mixed resin base around a fibre structural matrix. It’s the same stuff that boat hulls and touring caravans are made from amongst other things.
The material is very smooth and very hard wearing but is only occasionally used in sewers since it has to made to order for a specific project and is expensive. It is usually manufactured in segments.
The possible shapes are infinite with GRP.
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Circular and Egg-shaped GRP Components
Lined Pipes
As has been mentioned previously, care should always be taken in CCTV inspection reports when recording or observing linings. As we have seen already, it is possible to have pipes manufactured at the factory with a lining already inside it, and it is also possible to insert a new lining into an existing pipe.
Linings are usually an off-white colour in their own right but the resin mix that is used to cure the liner can be any colour, so the finished product inside the sewer can be any colour.
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Cast iron Pipe, Lined
As has been mentioned previously, cats iron pipe has a tendency to rust away from the inside out, but this deterioration can be halted by cleaning the pipe and then inserting a new liner inside which will then protect the metal framework of the drain from degrading any further, and will offer a smooth, jointless, rust free internal surface to carry the waste water.
Great care should be taken with recording this information in the pipe detail fields - this pipe material is cast iron, and it has a cured-in-place liner inserted which is either polyester or epoxy based.
Further care should be taken when describing linings that start and end along the length of a TV inspection. If the entire pipe material of the drain fabric changes, then this is recorded as a material change in the observation codes, but if a lining has been inserted, either a short patch or a long length liner, then the pipe material has NOT changed, the lining has changed. Making this material change observation is incorrect.
The operator should record an observation code that describes either a lining material change, a lining starts/ends code or a repair code (most commonly used for short patches).
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