Birmingham's Interesting Experiment in Pipe Lines In connexion with the scheme of the Corporation of Birmingham for laying the third pipe line from the Clan Valley, says the ''Surveyor," the Water Committee, upon the suggestion of the chief engineer of the city water undertaking, Mr, F. W. Macaulay, decided to experiment on the Severn siphon section, with reinforced concrete pipes. These give promise of being a great success from almost every point of view, including economy of cost, especially having regard to the fact that by the adoption of Mr, Macaulay's novel crossover system it has become f@ practical advantage to lay a pipe of nearly double the capacity of the first mains. The new pipe line has a diameter of 60in. instead of the original 42in., and following on the completion of the Severn siphon section, there is to-day in process of construction a, second length of about a mile and a quarter, on the Bonn system.
Another equally interesting experiment, which has followed on Mu. Macaulay's investigations, the adoption of a new kind of pipe consisting of a light steel cylinder of sufficient strength to withstand the pressures put upon it from within, lined internally by centrifugal method with an inch of reinforced concrete, and after being laid in the ground covered externally with ordinary concrete. The concrete not only gives the steel cylinder the requisite stiffness to resist external pressures, but absolutely protects it against corrosion. This new process of pipe manufacture has been carefully tested, and the Ministry of Health has been so impressed with its merits that it has sanctioned a longer pried of loan than is allowed for ordinary reinforced concrete mains. The Water Committee has ordered a length of this new pipe to be laid, and there is every reason to believe that it will ba utilized for the remainder of the third pipe line, and that it will prove in every way a cheaper and better water main.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.