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North American Society for Trenchless Technology (NASTT)

NO-DIG 2004

New Orleans, Louisiana

March 22-24, 2004

URBAN HDD – A DIFFERENT CHALLENGE

Arthur Morris, P.E.1, Rafael Ortega2, P.E. and Cindy Klopfenstein, E.I.T.3
1
Public Works and Engineering Department, City of Houston, Houston, TX
2
Infrastructure Group, Lockwood, Andrews, & Newnam, Inc., Houston, TX
3
Infrastructure Group, Lockwood, Andrews, & Newnam, Inc., Houston, TX

ABSTRACT: Due to traffic and pavement restoration issues, the City of Houston (Houston) determined
that a World War II vintage 24-inch cast iron line be replaced using horizontal directional drilling (HDD)
construction. Although HDD has been used in an urban environment on many occasions, a new set of
problems arise when using this technology around a major urban university.

This paper will discuss the reasons for Houston specifying HDD using high density polyethylene pipe
(HDPE). Specifically discussed will be why traditional construction methods and other pipe materials
were not specified.

Additionally, because the project area was situated in and through the University of Houston (UH), which
has a student population of over 30,000, specific problems had to be addressed. Those problems will be
discussed and lessons learned will be presented.

Some of the lessons learned include: coordination issues with UH regarding site restoration and traffic
control, time constraints imposed on the contractor, and how work was performed to minimize the impact
to the existing utilities and facilities.

Project Background

A 24-inch cast iron water line was originally built in the 1950’s to serve a World War II bunker in Houston,
TX. The bunker later changed hands and became the main campus location for the University of
Houston (UH). The existing 24-inch water line extends through the center of the campus, without an
easement. In fact, through the basement of Hoffman Hall, home of UH’s College of Natural Sciences and
Mathematics, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, and numerous classrooms and other offices,
you will find the 24-inch line. The existing 24-inch line is also inches away from the foundation of the
University’s library. This line has had extensive repairs that are occurring at a more frequent rate. The
breaks have most frequently occurred in locations along UH’s most heavily trafficked, most landscaped,
main entrance, University Drive (Entrance 1).

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Preliminary Design

The existing 24-inch water line is in a state of disrepair. The City of Houston decided to abandon the
water line in place so as not to cause further disruption to UH. To continue to provide service to the
campus and surrounding areas, it was determined a 20-inch water line was adequate to meet the water
and fire flow needs for UH. The alignment chosen for the 20-inch water line is within the city right-of-way
and surrounds the campus on two sides, along Elgin Boulevard and Calhoun Road. See Figure 1 for a
project map.

Figure 1. Project Map.

The two main existing water meters for the campus were located within the campus property. One meter
is located on the University’s Entrance 14, the second most used entrance, approximately 500 feet away
from a city street, Cullen Boulevard. The second meter is located on Entrance 1, approximately 1,500
feet away from the proposed 20-inch water line. The City of Houston and its Consultant for the project,
Lockwood, Andrews, & Newnam, Inc. (LAN), met with key staff members of UH’s Utility Services
Department to discuss how to best continue water service to the campus.

It was agreed by all parties that the two water meters will remain in place and a 12-inch water line will
extend from each leg of the proposed 20-inch and tap into the existing water meters. In exchange for not

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having to relocate the existing water meters, UH’s Board of Regents and Chancellor agreed to donate the
easements required for the proposed 12-inch water lines to the City of Houston. To minimize easement
area and interference to the campus, a 12-inch water line was proposed to be installed along Cullen
Boulevard. Cullen Boulevard has high traffic volumes, is in one of the most visible areas of the campus,
and is congested with utilities.

To replace fire service from the existing 24-inch water line, an 8-inch water line was also added along
Holman Avenue between Scott Street and Cullen Boulevard. This proposed water line is also in a critical
location. The combination of this proposed 8-inch line and the proposed 12-inch water line along Cullen
meant that the football/ track and field stadium as well as the Athletics Center were both to be surrounded
by construction on two sides. Maintaining access to these facilities was a major issue. It was apparent
even in preliminary design that construction would have to be intricately phased so that work could be
performed in multiple areas at once without causing major disruption.

Final Design and Construction

Although Houston had considerable cooperation from UH during the preliminary engineering phase and
agreed on the route of the proposed water lines, there was yet a great amount of coordination required
throughout the design and construction phases. The main concerns identified relate to the overall
functionality of the campus:
• considering safety of students, staff, and visitors,
• maintaining ability to hold campus events,
• maintaining good traffic flow for pedestrians and vehicles, and
• upholding the campus beautification efforts.

Pedestrian Traffic
The University of Houston, like most major urban universities, has a high volume of pedestrian traffic.
Many of the pedestrians, such as friends and family of the students, campus visitors, touring potential
students and staff, and invited guests, are new to the campus and are not aware of alternate routes to
avoid construction zones. Also, the students and staff who are on the campus everyday, may be too
conditioned to their surrounding environment not to notice all of the changing construction conditions.
Therefore, a major priority of the project was safety. Main crosswalks need to remain open at all times,
and temporary walkways and detour routes will be used in all other cases.

Campus Events
The University of Houston holds countless events and activities on its main campus. Most major events,
such as graduation and homecoming are published and updated on the University’s website up to a year
in advance. The contractor was directed to this website by the Contract Documents so that he may plan
his work areas in advance and anticipate conflicts. The contractor was required to shut down any
operations that would be near the location of a major event and parking areas as directed by the Project
Manager or UH and to restore the site to normal conditions. The contractor also had to obtain the
approval from UH for any staging area they wanted to use. The contractor was allowed to work nights
and weekends in order to minimize noise and other disruption to classes during normal school hours, and
to shorten the duration of construction on the campus.

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In order to plan construction activities to occur during the most opportune times, the sequence of work
required in the construction documents was very structured. The project was split into phases of work to
bring specific proposed water line segments into service within set time frames. For example, work along
the entrances and Cullen Boulevard had to be completed during the summer and winter breaks. To
reinforce the importance of the work sequence, the contractor was offered two separate incentives.

The first incentive was to complete all work and transfer services along Entrance 1 within only 30 days
from starting work in the area and it had to be completed during the University’s winter break. The
second incentive was to complete all work, including transferring services, along Entrance 14 and Cullen
Boulevard within only 60 days from starting work in the area, during UH’s summer break. It was crucial to
perform this very intrusive work within the heart of the campus during periods with the least interference
and traffic. If either of these time constraints were exceeded, the contractor was required to pay
liquidated damages, finish the work only on weekends in those areas, provide temporary pavement and
extra uniformed officers during the weekdays in the area at no separate pay, and to fully restore and
clean the site to normal conditions during the weekdays. The contractor was allowed to operate multiple
and separate crews to help meet the 270 construction day schedule and to earn the incentives.

Nearly every option available to minimize the duration of construction was made. In addition to those
efforts previously listed, other devices that helped to speed the project along were the use of high early
strength concrete, the option to use the concrete maturity method of testing pavement strength, and
construction methods that would prove to be most efficient.

Vehicular Traffic
The urban university has a student body consisting mainly of commuter students. The volume of
commuter students greatly adds to the traffic flows. Thus, the peak traffic times are heavily based on the
class schedule. Instead of the typical 8 AM and 5 PM rush hours, the campus has morning, lunch,
afternoon, and evening rush hours. At other periods of the day, traffic is minimal. The traffic counts from
a study that UH had performed on the campus in October, 2001 can be found in Table 1.

Location Bidirectional Volume

Calhoun, S of University 5,956
Cullen, S. of Elgin 17,841
Cullen, S. of Holman 12,847
Elgin, E of Ent #18 10,448
Elgin, W of Cullen 7,102
Holman, W of Cullen 7,259
Scott, S of Elgin 22,341
Scott, S of Holman 21,146
Scott, S of Wheeler 21,031
University, E of Calhoun 12,792
Wheeler, W of Calhoun 11,929
Table 1. Traffic Counts

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During construction, no matter for what period of time, traffic control would be an unavoidable issue. High
early strength concrete was required for pavement replacement areas at all major intersections. To
facilitate traffic flow, uniformed peace officers were the only allowable personnel for flagging positions. A
lieutenant of the University’s Police Department agreed to review and comment on the traffic control plan
in the design phase and to review any changes proposed by the contractor. The Contractor was also
required to contact this lieutenant 48 hours in advance before changing any of the traffic control set-up for
a new phase of work. The coordination offered by this lieutenant greatly aided the effort to maintain good
traffic flow on a daily basis, as well as during heavy traffic flows for campus events, and during the end
and beginning of semesters when there is the greatest increase in traffic.

Campus Beautification
One of the other main concerns of the University is the overall condition of the campus- keeping it
appealing to students, staff, guests, and of course, future students. Universities spend a great deal of
time, effort, and money for campus growth and development, including beautification efforts. Most
campuses have courtyards, fountains, and other campus icons. The University of Houston is no different.
From extensive landscaping, sculptures, and fountains to stone signs and exposed aggregate concrete
sidewalks, the University of Houston has made a great investment to improve the appearance of its
campus.

This was taken into consideration when the water line alignment was chosen. All effort was made in the
earliest design stages to avoid most gathering places such as the fountain or areas where new building
additions were proposed in the near future. The University of Houston agreed to review all submittals of
the water line design in order to look for conflicts with their own gas, electric and chiller utility lines, as well
as to see what areas will be impacted during construction. The University’s Utility Services Department
offered to do all necessary pruning of trees with only 48 hours notification from the contractor. A tree
protection plan and other Contract Documents were reviewed and formally approved by the University’s
Campus Development committee as well. Conflict with some existing landscaping and exposed
aggregate concrete sidewalks still could not be avoided.

Fencing was placed around the esplanades on Entrances 1 and 14 where dense hedges, large oak trees,
rose bushes, stone walks, and other landscaping are most abundant to try to minimize disruption to the
area. The contractor was also required to replace the site, including landscaping, sprinkler systems, and
sidewalks to original condition or better and to obtain the approval of UH. Care was taken to avoid
disruption to the campus.

Choice of Construction Method

The use of open cut-and-cover along most of the project route was not deemed feasible due to impacts
on campus traffic flows and the need for extensive landscape restoration. Light traffic volumes and the
poor structural condition of Calhoun Road deemed open cut-and-cover acceptable for this section of
water main replacement.

Due to high construction cost, tunneling was not considered a viable option. Auger construction, with the
ability to lay approximately 100 feet of ductile iron water line in a push, was considered. However,
polyurethane coatings are required by the City of Houston on augered ductile iron pipe. The ductile iron
pipe industry refused to provide a polyurethane coating on the pipe, and instead wanted to provide a
polyethylene coating. This coating option was not allowed by the City because of their experience with
polyethylene encasement slipping off the pipe when pushed through an auger hole.

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Horizontal directional drilling is a trenchless method of installing pipe that begins with boring a small,
horizontal hole (pilot hole), typically under the crossing of an obstacle, with a continuous string of steel
drill rod. The pilot hole establishes the path of the drill rod and subsequently the location of the pipe.
When the bore head and rod emerge on the opposite side of the crossing, a special cutter, called a
reamer is attached and pulled back through the pilot hole to open the hole to a slightly larger diameter
than the carrier pipeline. The product pipe is pulled through from the side of the crossing opposite to the
drill rig.

Access pits are excavated along the future pipeline project, typically located at existing utility crossings,
service taps, inline valves and tees. Access pits are typically a few feet wide in each direction and help
the drilling crew check pipe laying progress. Due to the limited size and frequency of the access pits,
minimal disturbance occurs.

Because of the constraints discussed, HDD construction was necessary to construct the water line at the
University of Houston campus. With HDD construction, approximately 1,000 feet sections of water line
could be installed with only minimal excavations. HDD construction was the best method to avoid
pavement and landscaping damage, and to minimize impact to both pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The
ability to span great lengths with little excavation also led to reduced construction duration. HDD
construction proved to be the least intrusive construction method available.

Pipe Material

Concrete pipe materials were not allowed as an alternate on the project because of the difficulty installing
the numerous service connections on the small diameter water line. Additionally, concrete pipe was
considered too bulky and inflexible of a material to be augered or directional drilled.

Due to corrosion concerns and cost, steel pipe was not allowed as an alternative.

To be able to pull pipe through a reamed hole, a flexible, lightweight product is necessary. Polyvinyl
Chloride (PVC) pipe is typically only allowed by the City of Houston in pipe sizes up to 12-inches in
diameter. The pipe to be directionally drilled needs to have restrained joints to allow the pipe to be
continuously pulled through the reamed hole. Twenty-inch PVC pipe has restrained joint mechanisms
that greatly increase the outer diameter of the pipe and the diameter of the reamed hole. The restrained
joint PVC pipe was not allowed to be directional drilled or augered because of pavement settlement
concerns.

Ductile iron pipe was considered only for auger or open cut operations. However, the ductile iron pipe
industry currently does not provide an exterior coating for trenchless installation methods that are
approved by the City of Houston. With most of the City of Houston’s allowed pipe material options being
unsuitable for HDD construction, another alternative was investigated.

High density polyethylene pipe (HDPE), a lightweight thermoplastic material, is a perfect match for HDD
construction and was the basis of the water line design for this project. HDPE has excellent impact and
abrasion resistances. It is corrosion resistant, ductile, and flexible and can be used in potable water
applications. HDPE pipe has fusion welded joints. It is because of this “jointless” quality that thrust
blocking is typically not necessary. Fusion welded joints also minimize the possibility of having leaks in
the water line in the future.

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Project Expectations

This project of 13,400 linear feet of 20/ 12/ 8- inch water line was estimated to cost $2,686,178. There
were a total of eight bids received. The project was awarded to the low bidder for $2,725,082.

Construction of this project began in December of 2003 and is scheduled for completion in August of
2004. Although the design was based on HDD methods using HDPE pipe, the Contractor elected to
install the water line with a combination of open cut-and-cover DIP sections and augered PVC pipe
sections for the project. The City approved the use of augered 20” PVC pipe for this project because the
Contractor made provisions to not require any of the PVC sections to require restrained joints. The
Contractor installed restrained joint DIP by open cut-and-cover only where necessary for thrust restraints
and offsets.

Constructing a water line at a major urban university campus will prove to be challenging. However, both
the use of trenchless construction and the extensive coordination and planning efforts are expected to
reduce impact to the campus. By the time students arrive on campus in the fall, the University will be
ready for a new semester of classes, a strong football season, and no one would suspect that just months
before the campus was undergoing such major construction.

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