PIGGING

Drinking water is precious.

Therefore, as little of it as possible should be lost or contaminated.
MTA Messtechnik provides service and products to ensure that your drinking water supply remains in good order from source to pipe.

Pipeline pigging is a time-honored procedure that produces satisfactory results, but there is some risk that an inserted pig may beome stuck in the pipeline.

Therefore, pigging is nowadays rather done rarely, primarily as part of pressure testing, to force residual air out of the lines or to prepare new lines for disinfection.

Basically, there are three types of pigs in different degrees of hardness. Within each group they are subdivided into about 15 different types depending on the field of application.

A pig may be no more than 5% lager than the pipe to be cleaned and is moved forward with the water flowing in the pipe.

After being introduced via the sluice, the pig is transported further through the pipeline with the pipeline’s own pressure and must be removed from the pipeline again at the end of the cleaning section.

Due to the special material configuration of these pigs, even valves and 90° bends are not an insurmountable obstacle. It should be noted, however, that in the case of heavy deposits, these accumulate in front of the pig and there is a risk that the pig will get stuck.

T-pieces or 90° bends are no problem for pigs, even longer pipeline sections can be cleaned with pigs.
However, a pig cleaning process takes a relatively long time, as the speed is only 0.5 – 1.0 m/s.

• SW = swab, foam rubber polyester coated, very soft pig
• DF = dura-form foam rubber polyurethane coated, medium to hard pig
• XX = criss-cross polyurethane plastic with DF
• SH = split DF

• WB = wire-brush XX with integrated steel core
• St = stud-big XX with integrated steel hook
• others like PVC and plastic pipes