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:: NEWS \ Technical articles
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They call it strength of will, strength of ideas; how to perk up in a hard context.
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We find ourselves in Zeljusa, at about 10 kilometres from Mostar, Bosnia Herzegovina, scene of terrible fightings during the war of the 90’s. It is in this area that an ambitious project is about to be completed: a state-of-the-art irrigation system built on a 300 hectares vineyard.
The carrying out of such an irrigation system entails the use of 45 kilometres of HDPE tube, divided into the main duct and the junctions.
The main duct is made of Ø 250 mm plastic pipes, SDR 17; the junctions, respectively: 15 kilometres of Ø 125 mm pipe, SDR 26 PN6; 15 kilometres of 110 mm Ø pipe, SDR 26 PN6; other 15 kilometres of Ø 90 mm, SDR 26 PN6 to finally end with a sophisticated drop by drop irrigation system made of decoders connected with a central programmer.
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For the welding, the local firm Procedo, supported by the experience of PlusPipe srl, has chosen the Italian technology of RITMO S.P.A. In particular, two butt fusion welders of the Basic Line: Basic 160 (working range from 40 to 160 mm) and Basic 250 (working range from 75 to 250 mm), both supplied with adapters.The third machine involved is Elektra 400, an electrofusion welding machine.
The BASIC machines were responsible for the main ducts welding, while Elektra 400 had to finalize the joining of the pipes connecting to the drop by drop system.
The environment - 300 hectares of construction site that requires constant movements – brought out the best characteristics of the Basic machines: robustness and manoeuvrability, reliability and precision. In particular, two are the features esteemed by the operators. The first one regards the electronic thermo-regulator Digital Dragon that guarantees a precise control of the heating plate’s temperature and is very easy to read and set up. The other preferred feature is the SMARTLock adapters system (RITMO patent) that allows to set up a new working range of the welder’s clamp in a very short time, a substantial time-saving for all operators.
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The Elektra 400 is unfailing. It can weld couplings from Ø 20 to 400 mm, offering something that welders really enjoy: the machine can work continuously, with no cooling time, under 40° C. Furthermore, thanks to a scanner-reading system that allows the automatic setting of welding parameters and a memory able to record up to 4000 welding cycles, Elektra 400 has highlighted its qualities inside the construction site.
While the welding presented no issues, the extremely rocky soil of the site forced the operators to overfill the bed where the pipes will be placed, handling the duct with uppermost care.
The contractor, a former state controlled company that is now one of the most important wine-producing cooperatives of the region, has the merit of carrying out an ambitious plan able to launch the economy of an area with an extremely difficult past.
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