Trenchless technology

Installing underground infrastructure with conventional trenching becomes more difficult as cities and existing infrastructure become denser and environmental damage becomes unacceptable.

Trenchless technology embraces a wide range of techniques to install pipelines and conduits without trenching. This dramatically reduces, or entirely avoids, safety problems, traffic problems, public inconvenience and environmental risk.

Lucas is an Australian pioneer in trenchless technology, introducing HDD and the first drilling rig to the country in 1989. Today, the company is a world leader in HDD having completed several "world firsts". Lucas uses a number of technologies to meet most underground infrastructure challenges.

Horizontal directional drilling

Instead of digging trenches, HDD can take a pipe or conduit directly from one point to another up to several kilometres away with virtually no surface disturbance. HDD reduces and often completely avoids environmental impacts on land and aquatic environments. It is sometimes called 'obstacle avoidance technology'.

Main uses of HDD

Gas and oil pipelines

HDD can place high pressure gas and oil pipelines deep under obstacles like waterways, , beaches, cliffs, mountains, airports, major roads and other large natural features, urban structures or other sensitive area.

Water and wastewater

As with gas and oil, HDD can be used to carry water and wastewater pipelines under and around almost anything. Lucas has also used HDD to directly intersect deep underground sewer tunnels. Apart from avoiding the cost and disruption of surface trenching, Lucas has pioneered the ability to maintain precise gradients deep underground. So long gravity transfer mains are now possible, which dramatically reduce and in many cases eliminate the need for pumping stations.

Telecommunications

As well as carrying conduits for fibre optic cables beneath rivers and other obstacles, Lucas has used HDD to carry them to near-inaccessible mountain tops and microwave transmission towers. Lucas also drilled landfalls for the PacRimWest and SEA-ME-WE-3 trans-oceanic cables. By placing them deep into bedrock beneath the coastal sands and surf zone, these fibre-optic cables are protected in the most vulnerable part of their route, without disturbing the beach and dune areas.

Electricity

High-tension cables can be placed deep underground, protected from damage and avoiding surface obstacles. Lucas has several proprietary techniques for installing these cables at distances approaching 3km without overstressing the cable during installation.

Environmental protection and remediation

HDD has a wide variety of environmental users: draining landslip-prone hillsides, extracting methane gas from coal seams before mining, restoring sand to beaches, creating underground barriers to reduce movement of contaminants, draining slag heaps and rubbish dumps.