Lightweight plastic pipes play vital role in £3m Bristol water project

New HDPE pipework and fabrications are enabling the provision of clean drinking water for the City of Bristol.

UK-based manufacturer, Asset International, provided hundreds of meters of its Weholite pipes for a new UV treatment facility at Bristol Water’s Barrow Gurney works.

The company’s welding team helped the project’s main contractor, BAM Nuttall, conduct on-site extrusion jointing using its latest specialist equipment.

Asset provided BAM Nuttall with an extensive array of inter-process pipework – measuring 1,000mm to 1,400mm diameter – as well as complex fabrications for the Barrow Gurney works, which treats water from three reservoirs serving the city.

The new UV treatment facility at Barrow Gurney accommodates both the process units themselves and the pipework and services supplying them. Weholite pipework now links these units to the rest of the treatment equipment at the site.

In addition, Weholite fabrications, modelled through FE Analysis by Asset’s engineering design team, were used to connect inter-process pipelines to ductile iron valves, flow meters and static mixers.  

All Weholite components were designed, manufactured and prefabricated at Asset’s South Wales factory, only 30 minutes’ drive from the site, ensuring rapid delivery.

Commenting on their decision to use Weholite, Martin Wearn of BAM Nuttall, said: “The benefits of utilising Weholite pipework have to be the reduced lead-in times for fabrication and its low overall weight, when compared to that of traditional material pipework.”

This was reinforced by Rex Lewis from Bristol Water, who said: “In certain low pressure situations, the use of Weholite pipe provides a very versatile and cost-effective solution.”

Construction of a UV treatment unit at Barrow Gurney is part of the latest nationwide Asset Management Period (AMP6), which has seen water companies across the UK invest hundreds of millions of pounds in ultrafiltration and UV facilities. This is an increasingly popular method for removing certain types of bacteria and protozoa from potable water.