As plumbing engineers, we design piping systems for a variety of building types: pharmaceutical plants, newspaper printing facilities, commercial buildings, hotels/motels, schools, universities, power plants, and the list goes on. Each type of building comes with its own set of challenges. One such challenge was to design a double containment piping system (a system equipped with a secondary means of containment) for the underground floor drainage system of a combined-cycle power plant where prevention of groundwater contamination was paramount. The floor drains in a power plant can contain oils (one drainage system) and chemicals (a separate drainage system) along with water. The municipality was concerned that, unless these systems were designed as double containment systems, any future leaks could have an adverse impact on the groundwater.
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