The Slotdrain drainage system is UK-based Gatic’s solution to excess surface water. Facilities such as airports and ports in the region are increasingly employing the system with confidence.

01 March 2013

OWNERS and operators of major airports in the region are increasingly turning to the Slotdrain drainage system manufactured by Gatic for a solution to the problems caused by excess surface water, which could result in major disruption to schedules and leave passengers fuming.

The UK-based Gatic is internationally renowned for the manufacture and supply of engineered, gas- and air-tight, heavy-duty access covers and surface water drainage systems to the construction, transport and utility markets. The company’s reputation has been established for more than 80 years, providing quality products and performance on prestigious projects across the globe.

As managing director Nick Buckingham points out: “We are actually a global business with more than 50 per cent of our sales outside the UK. We have always had a stronghold in the Far East and Middle East where we went along with the British consultants in the 1960s and 1970s – that is where the foundation of business is.”

As a result, Gatic’s heavy-duty access covers have been specified for most of the major infrastructural projects in the region where the highest standards and specifications were required, including Jebel Ali Port, Abu Dhabi International Airport, Dubai International Airport and Al Maktoum International Airport, all in the UAE, and the new Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar.

Familiarity with the operational issues at airports and seaports first led Gatic to the development of its Slotdrain range of surface water drainage products. The system is capable of disposing of huge amounts of water, yet presents only a tiny slot to the surface, eliminating the vulnerable gratings and covers that characterise more conventional systems.

“Not only is Slotdrain faster and more accurate to install, it has no moving parts, as opposed to gratings that need to be bolted down,” Buckingham explains. “An airport operator’s greatest fear is FOD (foreign object debris). Continuous tracking over conventional gratings can loosen the anchor bolts and eventually they can become free and pose a significant FOD hazard.”

“Slotdrain is used around every parking bay at London Heathrow’s Terminal 5 where the planes are tracking back and forth continuously: there’s nothing that can work loose.”

In fact, Slotdrain’s unique channel drainage profile was originally developed in conjunction with leading construction industry professionals from the airport sector.

“We have put a version of Slotdrain into virtually every airport in the UK. It was developed with the British Airports Authority precisely because they had a problem with gratings,” Buckingham says proudly.

The Middle East is home to one of Gatic’s largest Slotdrain system installations, at the Nakilat-Damen Shipyard in Qatar where the company supplied “literally miles of it”, Buckingham says.

A vital part of Gatic’s success in securing business in the region is the long-term tie-ups it has with its local representatives such as Mac Al Gurg, which has been looking after the British firm’s interests in the UAE for more than 25 years.

“We are a relatively thin organisation,” he says. “We work closely with companies like Mac Al Gurg, which is headed by general manager Rajkumar Paryani. They are very much an extension of our own sales organisation which we back up with technical support on an hourly or daily basis, depending on what they and our customers need.”

Slotdrain technology has proved infinitely scaleable and has now been further developed with a wide range of load-bearing capabilities. This has made it more competitive and viable in even smaller developments, such as shopping centres and urban landscaping, where discreet yet high-capacity, linear drainage and channel drainage is required as the continuous intake slot is the only outward indication of the highly efficient surface water drainage system that lies just out of sight.

Slotdrain is also easy to install: flat-based feet at the ends of each Slotdrain section make it easy to anchor them in the trench and allow concrete to be poured under and around the main body of the channel, maximising overall strength and integrity. Single-piece channels up to three metres in length mean fewer joints.

Additionally, Slotdrain keeps the below-ground pipework to a bare minimum, reducing the need for small bore channel drains and maintenance. Gentle curves are easily achieved and tighter radii can be accommodated with the use of optional one metre or 500-mm lengths.

Installation is made easy too as each section comes as a single unit, increasing the speed of installation. Since each unit is precision manufactured from galvanised sheet steel, Slotdrain is impact resistant and has a high quality finish.

But at the end of the day, the most important aspect of Slotdrain is its efficiency and water attenuation capability. Its unique design profile enables it to handle large or small quantities of water with similar high efficiency. Flow regulation is achieved by means of endplates with orifices sized to suit the application and positioned to avoid restriction in normal flow conditions.

Additionally, Gatic’s design software enables systems to exactly match permissible discharge rates at each site. This feature can be particularly useful on sloping sites, where water can be retained at any level, thus avoiding local flooding in the discharge area.

A significant ‘extra’ that Gatic offers is its rapid response design service, whereby its dedicated team can usually turn around the design of a Slotdrain system, complete with quantities and delivery timescales, within 24 hours. However, to make life even easier, Gatic can supply consultants, specifiers and contractors with its own proprietary state-of-the-art design software so that they can plan their own Slotdrain system. Straightforward and intuitive to use, it is the same software developed for and used by Gatic’s own in-house design team.

However, if customers find that their project requirements cannot be achieved with the use of the company’s comprehensive, standard range of products or they have some particularly unusual problem to overcome, they just need to talk to Gatic’s design team as the Slotdrain concept is sufficiently flexible and adaptable to easily allow the design and manufacture of custom components for bespoke systems, Buckingham points out.

Gatic Slotdrain fully complies with BS EN 1433:2002 – drainage for vehicular and pedestrian areas, and has been comprehensively load tested. Water-tightness has been tested to BS EN1433 and it is BSI certified.

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