The two-lane road Rotebroleden in Järfälla, Sweden has been expanded to a four-lane road – a project also affecting the water pipelines below ground.
Expanding from two to four lanes
The Swedish Transport Administration is expanding the road network around Stockholm and one of the roads has been expanded from two lanes to four lanes and a separate walk and bike lane. Obviously, this required a lot of construction work – not only above but also below ground. Related to the road expansion, Norrvatten, a municipal council producing drinking water and ensuring water for the consumers in the northeast part of the Swedish capital, needed to take action and move a water pipeline.
Re-dimensioning and replacing pipes
Norrvatten decided to renew remaining pipelines as well, even though these did not directly conflict with the road expansion. The pipelines were re-dimensioned from DN1000 to DN1200 and existing concrete and GAP pipes were replaced by steel pipes in order to meet future needs.
Three new sectioning valves with Y-fittings were incorporated on the route to facilitate future operations and create redundancy for the consumers.
3,000 metres with AVK solutions
The project covered a total of 3,000 metres of pipeline and a budget of approx. 13m euros. Along the pipeline AVK butterfly valves, gate valves and dismantling joints are installed.
As part of the project a new AVK air valve is tested. An underground air valve which is easy to maintain and allows for taking out water samples for testing. The air valve will be evaluated after a period of one year to see how it works during winter time.