AMERICAN SpiralWeld Pipe Makes an Appearance in NYC… Again

While NYC’s Williamsburg Bridge dwarfs the casing pipe in the photo, it does not take away from the importance of the steel casing to the success of the project.

By AMERICAN SpiralWeld Pipe Territory Manager Kyle G. Couture, P.E. 

When you think of a place that is highly dependent on infrastructure, New York City immediately comes to mind. Bridges, subways and streets are the most obvious, but NYC is also very dependent on underground infrastructure such as water mains and other buried structural pipe materials. Large-diameter water tunnels hewn through deep rock are legendary in engineering lore as a foundation of New York City’s infrastructure.

Selecting pipe materials is not something the city takes lightly, as it’s the availability of water that has allowed NYC to grow to its enormous size in a relatively small footprint. Without water, NYC would not be sustainable. When choosing materials for its water mains, NYC looks for products that can withstand the tests of time and will not need replacement for more than 100 years. This is why the city specifies steel pipe, and AMERICAN SpiralWeld Pipe has played a vital role in NYC’s infrastructure by supplying steel pipe for trunk water transmission mains and pipe for casings [a buried steel pipe shield protecting another pipe from surrounding loads].

AMERICAN SpiralWeld Pipe was recently awarded a project to supply 7,500 feet of 48-inch spiral-welded steel pipe in the congested East New York neighborhood, located in the borough of Brooklyn. Steel pipe is helping the installer, C.A.C. Industries, navigate through the network of existing buried utilities by offering uniquely designed pipe fabrications and the ability to make on-site field modifications. This line is replacing a 118-year-old cast iron line that was installed in 1904 and will remain in service until the new line is installed.

Another recent project in NYC involved the installation of casing pipe as part of a large rehabilitation project along the East River. After the devastating flooding from Hurricane Sandy, NYC began work to rebuild some of the barrier areas along the East River adjacent to the Williamsburg Bridge. AMERICAN SpiralWeld Pipe manufactured the 49-inch diameter, 5/8-inch wall casing pipe at its Columbia, South Carolina, facility. AMERICAN rolled and welded steel plates with a combination of longitudinal and girth weld seams to meet the stringent welding and material testing requirements from NYC.

AMERICAN is proud to be a part of the important infrastructure in NYC and furnish a new generation of products that will last another 100-plus years.