Gulf Construction Online - ASTM drafting standards for underground installations

Cables & Telecommunications

ASTM drafting standards for underground installations

01 August 2002

ASTM International is to develop standards for fibre-optic cable installation in underground utility pipes. The standards will be developed by a committee of experts from reputed institutions around the world, according to Dr Jey Jeyapalan, a consultant in pipelines, optical-fibre networks, trenchless technology, and failure investigation, based in New Milford, US.

"Optical-fibre broadband delivers lightning-fast internet to cities and an ingenious method of installing underground broadband uses robots and other devices to secure cables to the roof of sewer or natural-gas pipe, decreasing the need to excavate streets and clog traffic," Jeyapalan says. "Laser light - not electric current - passes through optical-fibre cable installed in utility pipes."

He continues: "Finding a path in existing piping systems beneath city streets is no picnic. As the demand for this technology increases, stakeholders pose questions about access rights, leasing, and similar issues.

''The biggest challenge is connecting the last mile beneath congested city streets. No standards exist for engineers dealing with municipal authorities, building owners, robot-deployment firms, and others involved. Stakeholders pose questions about access rights, leasing, and similar issues."

Jeyapalan, a civil engineer, says he played a key role in helping initiate the standards drive. "I contacted ASTM International in January last year to initiate standardisation on behalf of the telecommunication and municipal engineering communities. I felt that ASTM International had the highest visibility and the most credibility in the world when it comes to writing consensus standards."

ASTM staff and Jeyapalan gathered 165 stakeholders, forming ASTM Committee F36 on Technology and Underground Utilities.

The committee includes international representatives from universities; laboratories; departments of public works, water and sewer, and other municipal authorities; a South African construction and technology certification authority; the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); US pipe associations; a Japanese association for sewer optical-fibre technology; pipes and specialised materials, and optical-fibre cable manufacturers; major telecommunication corporations, optical-fibre deployment-technology firms; electronics and chemical corporations; and construction, architectural and engineering consultants.

The issues raised for standard development, according to Jeyapalan, include, but are not limited to:

Sewer selection criteria and serviceability;

Safety, access rights, and construction;

Materials, design, and installation; and

Operations and maintenance.

Standards can bring a common voice, an effective way to communicate with the world - a yardstick that the industry should follow, according to Jeyapalan.

"There are many benefits," he says. "At the moment there is nothing out there [to reference] if we were to start having disputes among ourselves on what would be the standard of care."

Developing standards for global optical-fibre cable installations in vastly different and crowded underground utility systems is a monumental undertaking.

"No two technologies operate the same, cost the same, or provide the same results,'' Jeyapalan says. '' Given the newness of this technology, we have an obligation to communicate to the users of our standards the drastically different attributes of various techniques that we have at our disposal."

The committee plans to develop numerous standards in the next few years and welcomes participation. Multiple stakeholders of diverse interests will be able to reference the standards to come to an agreement when they write contracts, according to Jeyapalan.