PROCESSING | LARGE DIAMETER PIPE
Right: Agru Americas provided 48in HDPE pipe for a water main project in New Orleans
– is “the largest stormwater engineering centre in the world”. The centre will house a number of innovations, including: a product development lab focused on the full range of a product’s lifecycle; a 90,000 gallon, closed-loop recyclable water system – al- lowing ADS to replicate real-world conditions; a hydraulics lab to support its water treatment businesses; a technology lab for manufacturing, controls and engineering prototyping; and materials science laboratories for performance- based materials testing. “It is dedicated to product engineering, materi- als science – including recycled plastics – and manufacturing technologies with the purpose of developing advanced stormwater solutions,” said Scott Barbour, president and CEO of ADS. Bringing team members together in one place helps to improve collaboration and innovation, he said – in areas such as the design and develop- ment of products, materials and manufacturing technologies.
Production expansion Agru of Austria says that its new production facility – Plant 6 at its Bad Hall factory – has allowed it to expand capacity and raise standards. The new plant has a production area of over 10,000 sq m, employs 50 people and uses modern machinery to make pips with an outside diameter up to 2250mm.
Below: Agru says that its new 10,000 m2 Plant 6 facility at its Bad Hall factory helps it raise capacity and standards
In addition, it has a large five-axis machining
centre that can machine large, heavy plastic parts measuring up to 4m x 4m x 4m. It also has an ISO class 7 cleanroom and has a photovoltaic system that provides 1300 kWp “for self-sufficiency with green electricity”, says Agru. Across the Atlantic, Agru America has expanded its operations in Williamsburg County in South
Carolina with a US$7.8 million investment. The company has four facilities in the state and has added new machinery and equipment to its manufacturing facility in Andrews. “We’ve been in South Carolina since 1996, and
have expanded multiple times,” said Robert Johnson, president and CEO of Agru America. “Our latest expansion will help ensure we continue meeting the demand for our products and solutions.” At the Plastic Pipe Institute (PPI) awards earlier
this year, Agru Americas won the municipal and industrial division category, for supplying 4,400ft of 48in HDPE pipe to a project in New Orleans. The project was completed in late 2023. Here, city authorities launched a huge project to
replace its 100-year-old water transmission mains with a modern piping system. Using trenchless technology and HDPE pipe from Agru Americas, the local utility estimated an overall 25% savings compared with other methods. The pipe was installed by Murphy Pipeline Contractors. In the South Claiborne Project, engineers used an
installation method called compressed fit, which uses existing infrastructure as a framework for installing a new pipeline. Agru expanded its produc- tion capabilities to include 30in and 48in SDR 17 solid-walled HDPE pipes to support the method. Especially important to this section of New
Orleans was the pipe’s corrosion resistance, flexibility, durability, and lower seismic susceptibil- ity than other piping materials such as concrete or steel, said the company.
CLICK ON THE LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION: �
www.tecnomaticsrl.net �
www.battenfeld-cincinnati.com �
www.soleno.com �
www.ads-pipe.com �
www.agru.at �
www.plasticpipe.org
18 PIPE & PROFILE EXTRUSION | Winter 2024
www.pipeandprofile.com
IMAGE: AGRU
IMAGE: PPI
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