Dewatering or Deep wells the real facts

DEWATERING.

DEEP WELL | WELL-POINT

When specialized solutions are required for excavations that extend beyond the ground water table and reliable site dewatering systems are required, NCS Fluid Handling Systems is recognized as the best in class dewatering designer and service provider. Dewatering is a general term that refers to the process of redirecting ground water, lowering the ground water table, and simply reducing the water content in soils to completely dry and stabilize the soil within an excavation, ensuring the proper installation and long-term success of valuable assets such as water, gas, or oil pipelines.

Single-stage well-point dewatering systems are frequently the most effective means of achieving an appropriate draw down in shallow excavations. For deeper excavations, a second stage of well-points or a deep well system might be built.

The professional engineering staff at NCS Fluid Handling Systems reviews the geological reports and information and provides a complete dewatering solution that includes a dewatering execution plan, dewatering equipment specifications and trained manpower with optional filtration or water treatment.

Proper installation of well-points or Deep Well dewatering equipment, as well as continuous monitoring of the dewatering process, results in increased system efficiency and cost savings. NCS Fluid Handling Systems staff are highly trained professionals maximizing the opportunity for project success and safe operation.

With over 300 years of combined experience the NCS team has provided the energy and construction industries with all forms of dewatering solutions such as well-point or deep well dewatering. Our well-point or deep well dewatering services have been tried and tested in over 100 projects with varying conditions and elements and through the incorporation of our stringent operational procedures, trained technicians, and the only dewatering company within house engineering professionals. In short, NCS Fluid Handling Systems provides a complete line of dewatering services and well-point dewatering systems to satisfy all your well point dewatering, ground water control, ground stabilization, deep well dewatering, sewage bypass, river diversion, water pumping, and deep well pump applications.

Whether it’s a planned project or an emergency, we’re here to assist you with the most efficient solutions and effective design of either well-point dewatering solutions or deep well submersible dewatering.

Well-point dewatering, which is may also referred to as Sand-point Dewatering from time to time, are methods used to remove ground water from an excavation and stabilize soil within the area being worked on. A good example of this would be a pipeline excavation where soil stabilizations is required for safe installation and ground water is hindering the required compaction. It is important to note that well-points can be used in conjunction with shoring boxes and other forms of shoring such as sheet piles to reduce hydrostatic ground pressure. To summarize, while well-point dewatering is used to drain a site or an excavation, it is also an intrinsic part of safe operations by stabilizing the soil. This is accomplished by the application of vacuum, which is often created by pumps. Simply put, the vacuum generated raises the hydraulic gradient of the casing flow to the well-point and water discharge header. The vacuum has a draw down capability of a range of up to 25 feet depending on some variable such as pump location and the permeability of the soil. The specially designed dewatering pumps incorporated into NCS Fluid Handling fleet and dewatering designs allow for maximum draw down well properly tuned by NCS trained technicians.

Any geotechnical engineer who works with soils should be familiar with the correlation between various types of soil and ground water. It is this area that the NCS design team differentiates itself and where NCS Fluid Handling Systems has earned client respect and confidence that an NCS Fluid Handling Systems dewatering solution will deliver stable dry excavation. The Engineering team and system designers at NCS Fluid Handling Systems look at all aspects and first take ground water hydrology into account, focusing on water flow characteristics in terms of flow direction, the volume of inflow prior to excavation as well as changes to flow patterns after the excavation has commenced, and all other subsurface soil conditions. The designers and technical product representatives at NCS Fluid Handling Systems work with our clients to ensure that our methodology and the added benefits of a NCS dewatering system are understood and that reduced water equals reduced ground water pressure and that the result increases the soil stability and compaction. The overall effect is an improvement in slope stability and the necessary increase in bearing capacity for the long-term use of infrastructure such as water and oil pipelines.

Not only are well point dewatering systems necessary for civil engineering projects, but they are also deployed / installed in other sectors like as energy and municipal pipelines.

The following are the advantages of a properly planned, installed, and operational dewatering system:

• Proper compactions and slopes for site drainage eliminating ground movement due to frost heaves or ground pressure points.
• Stabilize soils within the work area.
• Alleviate potential lateral stresses on shoring, sheet piles or retaining walls, when sheet piles are used the reduced pressure from ground water adds a factor of safety and stability to the exaction.
• Improve safe operations within the general construction area by providing a dry work area.

Realizing that there are many factors and benefits to a dewatering project is where a call to NCS Fluid Handling Systems is important first to a projects total safety and success. NCS Fluid Handling Systems in house engineers and designers understand that different plans are needed coarse and fine-grained soils and that it is possible that coarse-grained soils can be successfully dewatered using submersible pumps installed into dewatering screens or rock screens and allow water draw down to be managed to designed areas of the site for proper drainage off site. Alternatively with fine-grained soils the drawn down is more complex and simple submersible pumping will not be effective so this form of soil dewatering involves a comprehensive investigation into best method to select the optimal dewatering solution for ground water control again where clients can leverage the advantages of the entire of NCS Fluid Handling Systems specialists. In all cases of dewatering the additional consideration must be given to requires sediment control and filtration systems or intricate in some more dewatering systems using self jetting well-points or flushable well-points may be required in all cases NCS fluid Handling Systems has these pieces or equipment and all client needs covered.

Consult with the experts at NCS Fluid Handling Systems if further filtering through sand filters or bag filters are needed or additionally NCS Fluid Handling Systems can manage all water treatment requirements for ground contamination such as dissolved iron, other heavy metals, or hydrocarbon removal. The NCS Fluid Handling Systems Innovation center has complete lab facility for testing ground water samples prior to pumping activity so you start with the right solution on the first day. Many of our ongoing and recent projects operated by the team at NCS Fluid Handling Systems throughout British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, where the ground water was highly turbid and the NCS Fluid Handling Systems-installed system removed all particulates without the need for further discharge water filtering, but having the comfort of a supplier with all dewatering support equipment in stock in multiple locations across Canada has given clients the assure when things change the solution is locally available.

Well-points or Sand-points are installed using high pressure water jetting or augured using the newly designed NCS Fluid Handling Systems auguring system. Both systems have a distinct advantage and potential disadvantage in the wrong soil condition and application. While auguring does eliminate the need for pressure pumps and on-site water storage the well bore has characteristics such as glazing of the bore which reduces dewatering efficiency if the bore is not prepared properly whereas a jetted well is typically faster to install and produced vanes or fractures in the soil that enhanced water flow patters and improves dewatering effectiveness. In either case, once the well is developed to the desired depth, the hole is filled prepared, and the well-point is installed. Following the installation of the well point the headers’ gathering system is installed and the NCS Fluid Handling Systems specially designed well point vacuum pumps are connected, once the systems achieve flow the individual well-points are tuned by trained NCS technicians to maintain the optimal draw down of ground water. While some dewatering contractors may indicate it is okay to periodically shut down the dewatering system, be smart and ignore this advise, properly installed dewatering systems should only ever need to be tuned to various flows and dewatering systems ARE designed to be operated continuously.

In summary there are a host of options available for project success and NCS Fluid Handling Systems is just a call or click away.

1-888-6187-PUMP (7867) or www.ncsfluidsystems.ca