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1,000,000 cycles. How long should your vacuum valve last.

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A vacuum interface valve is located in a collection pit usually outside of the property boundary at the side of the road. In most systems this collection pit is connected to 4 to 6 homes via a gravity pipe connection.

Although the vacuum system is designed so that the vacuum valve allows for a flow of .25 litres per second (4 gallons per minute) from the houses. There are some occasions where parts of a system may be designed for higher flows. This may come from schools, commercial areas, gravity fed or pumped flows. Our engineers are very careful about how these higher flows enter the system.

The vacuum valve is designed to activate pneumatically once 40 litres (10 gallons) enters the collection pit. This allows for a mix of air and water to enter the system with the correct air to liquid ratio so that the vacuum mains do not flood with too much liquid. In an average residential community, the vacuum valve will activate between 80 and 100 times per day. This is based on the average flow per house and the number of houses per collection pit.

Flovac Manager Georg Sarap checking the monitoring system via the touch screen at the vacuum pump station

For maintenance we recommend that certain parts in the valve and controller are replaced every 10 years or 300,000 cycles. The body itself has a design life of 50 years. European Standard EN 16932 calls for an endurance test with 250,000 cycles, as does the Australian Standard AS 4310 Details Here

Flovac has independant testing of the valve at 700,000 cycles, significantly more than required by the standards and represents 23 years of activation without failure.

We know that in a number of our systems we have some very high flow situations. With some its been due initially to infiltration which clients have since resolved. With others the system has been designed to cater for very high flows. High Flow Projects .

One Million Cycles

Monitoring screen showing over 1 million cycles

At our project at Leppneeme in Estonia our team has been watching one of our high flow valves closely. It has a Flovac cable monitoring system which can tell the operator the number of times the valve has operated (Tsuklite arv:). It can also alert the operator to any faults, tell the temperature in the pit, the power use and location. The pit is located very close to the vacuum station which makes it easier to handle very high flows. This week the valve passed its 1 million mark with number of cycles. Based on these activations it has done 34 years worth of work in just 8 years and is still going strong.

Fortunately the operator would be able to tell from the monitoring system if any parts were wearing as the open time of the valve would start to change.

Although we have other systems that have valves which have recorded over 1 million cycles as well as achieving this result on our test bench it has been great watching it tick over via our monitoring system.

Flovac Vacuum Valve and Controller

Why Hilton Resorts chose a Flovac Vacuum Sewerage System

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The Hilton Salwa Resort is designed to become one of the largest resorts and residential projects in Qatar. Utilizing a Flovac vacuum sewer system the resort is constructed on 257 acres of land in the Salwa area. The beach resort and villas is a massive project that includes a water park, marina, dive center, cinemas, pools, a health club, spa and a considerable retail space. In addition to the rooms and suites in the main hotel building, the resort will also include two small “villages” of family villas. (Hilton Hotels  announcement)

Hilton Salwa Beach Resort and Villas

Flovac was asked to design and supply a vacuum system that would be able to handle the high flows that will ultimately be handled by the Resort. The vacuum system needed to facilitate not only the hotel but also residential areas, restaurants and the marina. The client was aware of the good work which Flovac had done at Reef Island in Bahrain (Read Here) and was particularly impressed with the monitoring system that had been installed.

The monitoring allows operators to see exactly what was happening anywhere in the network including the operation of the vacuum pump station. Mr Willem Gooren one of the founders of Flovac managed the project and was based in the Middle East for extensive periods during the projects establishment and finalization.

Smart and Safe Installation

In sandy soils, especially areas where there is a high water table vacuum systems are ideal as all of the pipework is installed at a shallow depth in the ground. A stepped profile within the pipeline design allows for some utilization of gravity while keeping the pipe shallow.

Installation of vacuum mains is a lot faster than the installation of gravity sewers as there is less requirement to de-water or pre-load the land. HDPE pipe is used often when installing in hot climates and where soil conditions are unstable.

Leak Proof

The use of a Flovac system was also important to ensure that there would be no potential leaks from the system. As all vacuum pipework is under a negative pressure sewage cannot leak from the pipe in the event of a break.

The Vacuum Pump Station is one of the largest stations in the world. Housed in a dry and air conditioned environment the two large collection tanks are connected to five large Busch Mink MM 1202 vacuum pumps. Flovac has used Mink pumps since before 2005 and so has great experience in the correct set up to maximize the ability to handle the large flows required in this project.

 

 

 

 

Reef Island Resort Official Opening in Bahrain

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A high profile project and one of the largest scale vacuum sewerage systems ever designed had an official opening this month in Bahrain for its key resort project.

Reef Island decided to use a Flovac vacuum sewerage system due to the ease and speed of installation compared to using a gravity sewer systems. There was also a decision by the developers of the resort that they wanted to use world class environmental best practice and through research had discovered that this is what Flovac delivered.

The whole island is serviced by just a single vacuum station which is completely concealed underground.  The island features not only this world class resort but numerous bungalows, apartment buildings and world class restaurants.

For the special opening Flovac’s Chairman Mr Willem Gooren was invited as a special guest along with members of the Flovac team who were involved with the system development.

To assist with the operations of the vacuum system Flovac has installed a monitoring system that enables the operations center in Holland to provide additional remote support. With our senior operational teams able to review the system in real time, fast communication can occur to assist those based locally.

High Flow Projects – Reef Island Bahrain

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Over the last five years building work has continued at Reef Island in Bahrain and this year Flovac has added its proprietary wireless monitoring system to assist the operations group with troubleshooting the system.

Concept Design for Reef Island Bahrain. Shows 55 story building, 32, 16 and 8 story apartments.

When design work commenced on the Reef Island project in 2008 many engineers suggested that vacuum systems could not be designed to handle flows coming from high rise buildings such as those being planned at Reef Island.

The developer at Reef island was planning a number of high rise apartment blocks which included 8, 16 and 32 story blocks. There was also a plan for a 55 story building on the reclaimed land site.

As Flovac had previously done a number of high flow projects including the world’s first in Bangkok, Thailand; ( See Thailand Project details)  there had also been a number of other high flow projects including oil refineries, industrial area’s , schools, hotels, shopping centres and hospitals.

Ensuring that the flows do not steal vacuum from other lots upstream and sticking to a limited flow per valve has ensured that the Reef Island project has run smoothly and handled the flows easily.

For more details on Reef Island