Trenchless Engineering Special Edition [1]

One of the key preconditions for development is the presence of technical infrastructure networks. Technical infrastructure continues to be the largest investment area in Poland.

In 1998, on the initiative of the Polish Waterworks Chamber of Commerce (Izba Gospodarcza Wodociągi Polskie) and Poland?s biggest water companies, the Polish Foundation for Trenchless Technology (Polska Fundacja Technologii Bezwykopowych, PFTT) was established. Its first President was Jerzy Adamski (at that time the President of Wodociągi Kieleckie Sp. z o.o.) and currently the President is Marek Banasik, Vice-President of Wodociągi Kieleckie Sp. z o.o.

This easily identifiable logo is familiar to many of us in Poland. It is mainly due to the presence of INFRA which commenced its operations in May 2000. However, the Polish chapter of the German engineering company Pfeiffer GmbH had been opened much earlier.

The WIR company was established in 1999. Ever since inception the objective of the company has been to provide technical solutions to efficiently rehabilitate old sewers. The solutions are based on the short pipe modules manufactured by WIR.

When, at the end of 2002, the press advertised the tender for the renovation of sewers in Bohaterów Warszawy and Ku Słońcu streets in Szczecin we did not realise that soon we would be part of one of the biggest projects funded by the ISPA. In fact, we knew next to nothing about the programme then, and we knew just as little of how it all works. What is FIDIC, what is the difference between \"yellow\" and \"red\", what can the Contract Engineer do and what can we, the Contractors, do? We knew nothing of that, either. Today, when we are nearly completing our Szczecin challenge, we can speak of our experience with pride.

INFRA has been active in the renovation market since May 2000. It may have been around for a short time, but it has become a permanent feature of the Polish and European no-dig scene.

Warsaw, the capital of Poland, inhabited by more than 2 million people is located in the center of Mazovian Province, in the valley of Vistula river.

Przedsiębiorstwo Produkcji Betonów Wyspecjalizowanych \"BETRAS\" Sp. z o.o. (BETRAS Enterprise for Production of Specialised Concrete Wares, Co. Ltd.) is one of the leading Polish companies specialising in production of concrete and ferroconcrete components used for construction of underground infrastructure. The Enterprise\'s history dates back to the 30?s of XX century, when a factory of concrete was founded in Ostrów Wielkopolski as a private firm. The Enterprise BETRAS in its present shape launched its activities in 1993 as a new business entity set up as a result of privatisation of the state-owned company PREFABET, Ostrów Wielkopolski.

BDC Poland was established in 1991 as a daughter company of what at that time was BDC Holland (currently BDC International). The company was established with the intent to sell chemicals for the drilling industry.

The services of HEADS are a response to the needs of a rapidly growing European market of trenchless technology. It is a very specialised and demanding field, where there is no room for randomly chosen personnel and material.

Several decades have passed since the City of Katowice (Province of Silesia in the South of Poland) carried out a truly revolutionary and technologically advanced, at that time, project involving construction of a sports / entertainment hall widely known as "Spodek" ("The Saucer"). Recently the city centre and its residents have seen another sample of the state-of-the-art engineering work, namely microtunnelling, a trenchless technology selected by the investors of construction of the "Welnowiecki" II general-purpose main sewer.

The subject of this story is a project involving execution of a crossing of the Wierzchno Canal near the Town of Barlinek, in the North-West of Poland. Back in 2002, a German firm Mussing undertook the task of drilling and installation of the product pipeline. And it was the pipeline installation phase when the failure came. Fortunately, it was possible to remove the pipe from the borehole. Some small repairs done, the pipeline was fit for re-using.

In 1956 first Polish \"moles\" were patented. Along with a huge advertisement campaign came a big demand both on the domestic and foreign markets. In consequence, further development of the design was passed on a group of scientists from The Gdańsk University of Technology (GUT).