Following the new provisions concerning accreditation in Germany, IKT has now had its building-product test centre in Gelsenkirchen reaccredited, and that in Arnhem (Netherlands) accredited for the first time. The IKT test centres have thus given unequivocal proof of their competence, as is documented under DAkkS (German National Accreditation Body) accreditation number D-PL-18196-01-00.

CIPP liner testing – and more!

The IKT provides quality-assuring, practically orientated product and system tests, plus on-site supervision services, for system operators. Testing of samples of CIPP liners accounts for a large proportion of the institute’s work. The accredited building-product testing, auditing and certification centres operated by the IKT and IKT Nederland in this field perform, inter alia, the following tests:

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About IKT Test Centre for Building Products

IKT has now founded a branch at Arnhem, in the Netherlands: IKT director Roland W. Waniek and branch manager Peter Brink recently celebrated the opening of “IKT Nederland”. Dutch and Flemish drain/sewer system operators thus now have a new contact for all matters concerning drain and sewer operation. This new IKT centre provides technical engineering advice, organises relevant events, and is the first accredited test centre for CIPP liners in the Netherlands.

Following its opening at the start of the year, the still young branch was able to achieve a major success the following summer: after intensive preparatory work, the IKT Netherlands test facility was officially accredited with “DAkkS”, Germany’s national accreditation body. “It is thus the first independent, impartial and accredited test facility for CIPP liners on the Dutch market”, enthuses Peter Brink, head of IKT Netherlands.

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About IKT Nederland

by William Busch, SR/WA
adapted from Right of Way 01-02/2014 (IRWA)

The thought of exporting and integrating our Association’s resources globally has economic and functional potential that is phenomenally exciting. As IRWA continues to expand its reach around the globe, the Association recently formalized a relationship with the Institute for Underground Infrastructure (IKT) in Germany, with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between our two organizations. We have already found our relationship to be very useful, learning much from our exchange of best practices and webinar sessions, as well as from both in-person and virtual meetings.

Reaching out

It all started four years ago when I was working for the San Diego County Water Authority and found myself in need of some technical data regarding potential tree root damage to underground pipelines. While conducting some research for her master’s degree, my wife Marjorie Busch came across IKT and identified it as a potential information resource for me as well.

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More about IRWA

The discharge of site and drainage-system water into the public sewer network is expressly prohibited in the majority of waste-water regulations in North Rhine-Westphalia. In many municipalities there are, nonetheless, numerous such drainage connections. How, then, should this issue be handled at local level? A guideline drafted by the IKT and the NRW Municipal Agency (KommunalAgenturNRW) provides orientation.

There can be a range of reasons for connected water-drainage systems. It may be, for example, that a drainage system was actually intended only for the construction phase, but then remained connected “just to be on the safe side”. Or the drainage system might have been installed despite the ban on permanent drainage. Leaking building sewer laterals and site sewer laterals can also act as drainage systems. Why do the municipalities prohibit the discharge of ground and drainage-system water, and why is drainage-system water discharged, despite the ban?

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We drive our cars through the car wash only when they’re dirty – and that’s totally logical. But many operators of waste-water systems continue to clean their drains and sewers to a fixed schedule. IKT has conducted a research project into the optimisation potentials of optimising sewer cleaning strategies.

Cleaning of sewers makes an important contribution to assuring the functioning of our drain and sewer systems, and accounts for a significant portion of the responsible municipalities’ budgets. It is often the case, however, that system operators’ resources are not used efficiently and/or that, due to inadequate knowledge of the current condition of the network systems, lengths are cleaned without this really being necessary. Many sectors are not, or only insignificantly, fouled when they are cleaned, for example, whereas other lengths exhibit heavy fouling. It is therefore possible to exploit potentials for optimisation and save costs by introducing an optimised sewer cleaning strategy, without risking impaired operational safety and reliability by universally increasing cleaning intervals.

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Emissions-relevant requirements for treatment of precipitation water using the separation system are governed in North Rhine-Westphalia by the circular directive dated 26 May 2004 by the Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Agriculture, Nature Conservation and Consumer Protection (the “Separation Directive” for short). The “Decentralised treatment of precipitation water in separation systems – Implementation of the Separation Directive” research project successfully tested systems for decentralised treatment of precipitation water from Category II (low-level pollution) surfaces.

The precondition for the use of decentralised installations is comparability with the centralised treatment processes listed in the directive in terms of pollutant retention and continuous operation. The tests demonstrated that decentralised treatment systems for precipitation run-off are, in principle, comparable with centralised systems, with primary attention to rainwater sedimentation tanks (RSTs).

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