Rehau pipework on right track at new velodrome
The bends in the track of the new Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow’s stunning new £113 million Emirates Arena presented the mechanical contractors installing pipework for the hot and cold water supplies with a complex set of challenges. The steel pipe that was originally specified would have required a large number of time-consuming welded joints to be made to accommodate the bends in the walls underneath the 250 m track where the pipework was to be mounted.
Contractor Spie Matthew Hall responded by changing the specification to Rehau’s flexible Rauvitherm pre-insulated PE-Xa pipework, which could be curved neatly and easily around the walls, saving considerable time on installation.
Over 1000 m of Rauvitherm pipe has been installed for the low-temperature hot water, domestic hot water and boosted cold-water services on the project in a range of single pipe sizes from 25 to 63 mm.
A series of pipe runs connects into high- and low-level plant rooms, passing through ducts where necessary. Because Rauvitherm is available from Rehau’s UK factory in continuous lengths of up to 300 m, it could be supplied in coils cut to the exact sizes required — in contrast to steel pipe, which is typically available in standard 12 m lengths.
Where jointing was necessary, it was completed by Spie Matthew Hall’s onsite team in Rehau’s Everloc compression sleeve jointing system, which achieves a permanent fully warranted leak-free joint in a fraction of the time required to complete a welded joint in steel.
